Squashed Beetles
by SirGawain99
Summary: Dewey Finn's band Maggot Death has been doing good, great even, until he decides that using Lawrence & Lydia as an example of everything wrong with modern music. Thus, a band rivalry is formed, but at least it's good for publicity. (Cross over between Beetlejuice: The Musical and School of Rock)
1. Chapter 1

"You can't wear mesh on television."

"Why not? I look cool."

"Noooooo, you don't. You look like an idiot."

"You're both aware that this is a radio interview, correct?" Ros interjected, the manager peering at the two men over her glasses. Managing them was more than a full-time job, but at least it paid well. "No one will see what you wear."

It took a moment for the words to settle over the two men, Dewey slowly loosening his grip on the mesh shirt that Ned was clutching. "Does that mean I can-"

"Please do not wear the snakeskin tights," Ros said, not at all unfamiliar with this conversation. She was also adept at ignoring the protesting that erupted when she left the room. "I swear, every interview…"

"Wardrobe issues again?"

Ros smiled when she saw Jade. The young woman was a good bassist and could be trusted to dress herself at the very least. "Yes, same as always. Mesh, snakeskin, almost surprised I didn't see leather pants in there." She shuddered, but it was only for effect.

"One day they'll learn that there are other ways to tell people you're bisexual," she said, adjusting the flannel she wore as a jacket.

"It's a radio interview," Ros emphasized yet again, pinching the bridge of her nose. "All you three need to do is promote your album and not cause a controversy. No need to alert people of your sexuality through clothing, and at least wear something that the interviewer can look at." That was an increasingly impossible demand it seemed.

"Ros, when have we ever caused a controversy?" Dewey asked, him and Ned having settled on outfits that were at least publicly acceptable. Mostly. That was really all anyone could ask.

"Near weekly."

* * *

"I'm here with Maggot Death, who are promoting their new album, Mount Rock." The interviewer was bubbly, blonde, and seemed to be doing her best with the trio who had just finished their competition of seeing who could lean back in their chair the longest, which had ended with Dewey trying to kick the legs out from under the other two, only succeeding in falling over himself. No one was impressed.

"So, why don't you tell us a little about the album? What sets you apart from every other musician out there?"

Dewey grinned as he hopped back to his feet. "Listen, music today? It sucks. It's awful. But we," he said, gesturing around himself grandly. "Still know what rock and roll is. And hey, why not share that with everyone else?"

"So, you think there's something wrong with modern music?" the interviewer prodded. Controversy brought in better ratings, and it wasn't like radio was the most profitable media these days.

"I mean, not saying that modern music is bad, it's just not what we want to see," Ned said, offering something predictably neutral.

"No, it's bad, it's bad Ned, it's very bad," Dewey said quickly, his head bobbing up and down as if this were a discussion with only himself and he was getting approval from a second Dewey. He ignored the high pitch snort that came from Jade, and the look of disapproval coming from Ros on the sidelines. "If music loses the heart, the soul, the sex, the stuff that makes it really good, what's the point? Someone has to make something worth listening to!"

"It sucks to hear, but Dewey's right, pop doesn't get you anywhere. It's fun, it's light, but you're never going to say much. Punk and rock make you heard," Jade added, also doing her best to ignore Ros. They were going to get yelled at later, she could feel it.

"Yeah! Yeah! Thank you, Jade." He threw a pointed look at Ned, who held up his hands defensively, as if to ask exactly what crime he had committed. "Like, okay, for example, Lawrence and Lydia. Name one song that has an actual meaning, says something! One!"

"Well this is just perfect," Ros said to herself, wondering how soon was too soon for the band's twitter to make a public apology about this entire interview. Or maybe she could beg for it to not air. Or she could fake her death, start a new life, manage a group that knew how to behave for twenty consecutive minutes.

* * *

Across town, another band was listening to the interview. A woman with bright red hair laid across the lap of a dark-haired woman, while a teenager and a scruffy man were at the other end of the couch.

"They're right, but they shouldn't say it."

"Natalie, we're talented."

"But our music sucks."

"Our music sells darling."

Natalie let out a groan, frustrated. She gently cupped Maggie's cheek. "I like the money, but I would really love to play something that I enjoy." She looked down the couch to the other two, Lydia rapidly texting on her phone, Beetlejuice looking over her shoulder and seemingly goading her on. "What do you two think?"

"What? Oh, I don't care, but Lydia is tweeting some great stuff about Maggot Death." Beetlejuice grinned, shoving his purple hair back.

"What do you mean by great?" Maggie asked as Natalie sat up, similarly worried. Beetlejuice's definition of great generally meant annoying at best, destructive at worst.

"Well, that's one OK Boomer tweet, a link to a subreddit about people complaining they're from the wrong generation… You know, fun stuff!" Beetlejuice's eyes were alight with chaotic energy, thriving both in receiving attention (even if it wasn't exactly positive) and getting to get some revenge. "Come on Natty, you have to admit it's fun. Mags? Come on. Come on."

"I like defending ourselves," Maggie said, a devious smirk growing on her lips.

"We can't deny they're right though," Natalie said, moving so Maggie would have to sit up. "Lawrence, when is the last time our mother actually let us make something… Well, for us? Maybe she would…"

"Nat you know how Mom is. It's all "make the music I tell you to" and "profits are all that matter" and "I should have abandoned you the day your father left."

"Go to therapy Beej," Lydia finally piped up, setting her phone to the side.

"Why would I do that?"

Lydia stared at him for a moment, then turned back to the other two women. "What's been tweeted is twote, sorry."

"I don't think twote is a word Lydia," Maggie said, raising her eyebrows.

"You're out of touch with the youth."

"I'm four years older than you."

"Hear that? Older."

Maggie opened her mouth to speak again, but Natalie gently set a hand on her thigh. Arguing with a teenager was pointless, especially when Lydia could be so convicted. "Why don't the two of you get out of here? We can handle the fallout if Mom decides she doesn't like your tweets."

Maggie looked up at Natalie, worried. Her thumbs ghosted over the scars on her girlfriend's wrist, knowing the mental toll that Juno could take on a person. No matter how long they worked with her, it didn't seem to get easier. Natalie simply pressed a kiss to Maggie's temple in response, reassuring her that no matter what, things would be okay at the end of the day.

Beetlejuice stood, hands fluttering at his side excitedly. Sure, fame could be isolating, but the attention he got, the way people got excited to see him… It was more intoxicating than any drug could ever be. "You wanna go make some hipsters freak out Lyds?"

"Now by freak out, are we faking a murder? How much fake blood do we need?" Lydia followed after Beetlejuice, beaming.

The pair slipped out of the back of the hotel, hoping to avoid fans. Fame was fun, but fans stalking them to their hotel was a legal incident waiting to happen. They had just made it to the back as Beetlejuice heard Juno cry out his first name in a shrill voice, and instinctively his hands stopped flapping and his shoulders raised, as if to shield himself.

"She knows that I was the one tweeting, right?" Lydia looked up at Beetlejuice, worried.

"Yeah kid, I don't think that matters too much to her. Now come on, let's go convince people that the Maggot Death interview horribly traumatized us."

* * *

"Did any of you remember what I said about not causing a controversy?" Ros's arms were folded, her eyebrows raised to a threatening arch.

"I did, I would like to point out that I specifically did not want to cause a controversy," Ned said, looking over at Jade and Dewey, who almost seemed proud of themselves. No, they were definitely proud of themselves.

"Ros come on; a little controversy never hurt anyone! Besides, what's the worst that happens, we have to go apologize to Lawrence & Lydia because we hurt their precious little feelings?" Dewey said, beaming when he heard Jade suppress a laugh. That was about the same as a vote of approval.

"No, Mister Finn," Ros began, and Dewey's eyes widened a little. "The worst-case scenario is being seen as out of touch with modern people, being abandoned by your fan base, and all four of us being out of jobs. But yes, I suppose that your worst-case scenario is oh-so awful. An apology. Really."

"So… damage control?" Jade said, her tone sounding like to vocal manifestation of a physical cringe.

"Yes Jade, damage control. Get ready for apology interviews, and dress appropriately. All of you."


	2. Confrontation

"Okay, so, here's the plan," Dewey began as the trio walked, gesticulating wildly. "We have about one day before there's consequences for our actions, so I think a night of living like rock stars is just what we need to prepare for Ros's apology tour." He was beaming as he set his arms around the shoulders of each of his compatriots.

"We live like rock stars every night Dewey, considering we are rock stars," Ned said in a matter of fact voice.

"Last night you were texting girls on a dating app, and Jade was reading a book about Napoleon because he's the only man in history even close to her height."

"He's like half a foot taller than me still… Anyways what were you doing? Staring at Ros? Watching us like a creep?"

"I was planning the best damn night that any of us have ever had!" Dewey slipped his arms off of both of them, moving with more energy than any one person should ever have ran ahead a bit, twisting on his heel to walk backwards, facing the other two as if giving a presentation. "Come on, we're famous! Let's get drunk, hook up, I don't know, do cocaine!"

"I am not doing cocaine." Ned stopped walking to emphasize his point, until Jade grabbed his arm and dragged him further along.

"That's fair, bad suggestion, I can take feedback."

Jade's face was screwed up in thought as she tried to find other flaws in Dewey's "best damn night" plan. "And you haven't hooked up with anyone since Ros started managing us. So, we all know that tomorrow you're going to complain about how you didn't find anyone you like."

Dewey scoffed as Ned began a horribly unflattering impression of him. "Oh Ros! I haven't been able to have a sex dream since we met! Take me! I'm yours!" He swooned, leaning towards Jade.

"Ned, I can't catch you, I am not strong. Ned! Oh Ned…" Jade looked down at him on the ground. "Buddy I'm five feet tall, I can't catch you. You know that."

"Ned get off the cement and follow me!" Dewey said, continuing to walk after turning again, his energy anything but diminished. "And stop talking about our hot boss!"

Jade shrugged, jogging to catch up with Dewey. "Come on Ned! I think this is the only time we'll let you wear mesh!"

* * *

Bars and parties, despite the fact that they were rock stars and supposed to be naturally accustomed to them, were still foreign ground to the band.

Ned always seemed too dorky to really engage in them, and no matter how many he went to he still felt out of place. Sometimes nothing changed between high school and adult life, except now he actually got invited to go out.

Jade hated crowds, her small stature making her get lost easily. She stayed close to Dewey always, although this generally resulted in the two of them feeding off of the chaotic energy of the other, a loop of bad ideas going back and forth. It was still better than dealing with some trashy pickup line about how she was "fun sized".

Dewey enjoyed bars. He was loud, charismatic, charming. Attention was fucking _fun _goddamnit, and he wasn't about to disappoint his fans. Times hadn't always been like this, and you never knew when they were going to end, so wasting it felt like a sin. Yet he knew that there would always be an itch in the back of his mind, reminding him of when attention had been dangerous, when even a glance in his direction felt like a threat in disguise. Anxiety didn't die easily, and by the time it was too late to notice it growing he was usually surrounded by so many people he risked making a scene.

So, a code was born. Each of them knew what it meant. One tap on the back of the hand meant that things were starting to look bad and that they should consider leaving. Two taps meant leave as soon as possible, no questions asked. Besides, being in a hotel together was a whole hell of a lot better than any bar if the others weren't happy or safe.

Despite the precautions though, they had fun together.

"That's disgusting. Jade, that is utterly disgusting. Please tell me you're joking."

"A pickleback is a totally normal shot Dewey," Jade said defensively.

"One of those glasses is filled with pickle juice and you want me to think that its normal. No. No! Nope. Not happening. You bribed the bartender."

"I did not! Now let me do my shot, Jesus!" She was grinning, despite her supposedly offended tone, and she downed her drink quickly, wiping the excess brine off her lip. "Next time it'll be just pickle juice if you're gonna complain so much."

"Horrible. Drink something normal." He ruffled Jade's hair, despite her protests, then turned to lean against the table they were standing at to scope out the rest of the bar. He may have talked a big game about finding the best place for rock stars to be rock stars, but this place was quieter, somewhere that they could actually take a breath and enjoy themselves for the night. "You know, maybe I will find someone to hook up with tonight. Plenty of babes want a piece of this Jade."

Jade rolled her eyes at him, only shoving his shoulder lightly as a response. "Now who's gross," she mumbled. "Just admit you have a thing for Ros, and we'll lay off! That's how easy it is to appease us."

"I don't negotiate with terrorists, Lewis."

Jade opened her mouth to respond to him but stopped when she felt a tap on the back of her hand. Ned was standing close to them now, seeming to have appeared from out of nowhere. "What's wrong?" she asked, tone going from jovial to worried.

Ned didn't respond verbally, instead jerking his head towards the two people who had walked into the bar. A goth teenager who was getting a large black X written on the back of her hand as they watched, and a man with purple hair who kept bouncing from foot to foot excitedly. The trio hadn't been noticed. Yet.

* * *

"Hey Beej, what do you call three outdated weirdos looking at us?"

"What? Oh my god, this is amazing. I'm going to cause _so_ many problems." He loved the look of panic that crossed the lanky one's face as he walked over, leaning on their table and propping his face up on his hands in a way not unlike a teenage girl. "Hey guys, funny running into you here. What's up?"

Ned opened and shut his mouth, looking over at Dewey and Jade. "You know what, I think you two should handle this," he said, setting a hand on each of their shoulders and pushing them forward.

"Ned I am going to kick your ass when we get home," Dewey said, trying desperately to ignore the man in front of him who was wiggling his eyebrows at a concerning rate.

"You made this problem, fix it." Despite the harshness of his tone, Ned didn't go anywhere. He thought they were idiots, not that they deserved to actually get hurt.

"So, new besties, that was a fun conversation that you had today. Nice little chat over the airwaves," Beetlejuice began, eyes flashing with a devious sort of mischief. Or violence. It was hard to tell. "Why don't you tell me what the _fuck_ all of that was about?" As he shifted position, now leaning in towards the two offenders he was joined by Lydia at his side.

"Hey man, we didn't mean anything by it-"

"You implied that we're everything wrong with modern music and that our songs don't mean anything," Lydia said snidely, glaring. "You might not like it but that doesn't mean you get to just bash us the first chance you get."

"Or, and this is a fresh new idea for you, make music that isn't fucking abysmal." Jade wasn't in the mood to be polite. "I mean, really, this is… sad."

"What's sad is rehashing the same music that got boring what, fifty years ago? Seriously, the only reason you're famous is because people got a little nostalgic. Besides, you all look like a few different genres had horrible love children they abandoned, but they probably should have just drowned them in the nearest river."

Dewey raised his eyebrows, leaning in a little, mimicking the energy from the two confronting them. "That's a whole lot from two people who can barely get through bullshit bubblegum pop without sounding like they're about to fall asleep. Even you know it's trash."

Beetlejuice was grinning as he watched Lydia insult them, but the comments about the music, _his _music, were starting to tick him off. "The lyrics are fucking good though, asshole."

"The lyrics sound like a third grader mad that their mommy doesn't love them wrote it."

The next moment was a blur. Beetlejuice threw a punch, Dewey retaliated, Jade escalated, and it didn't take long for all hell to break loose.

* * *

Maggie was holding Natalie, a gentle arm around her shoulders, a soft kiss to her temple. The red head was shaking as tears silently poured from her eyes, but the comfort from someone so loving made it a little easier.

Natalie closed her eyes, trying to force herself to stop crying. It didn't work, and she looked up at Maggie, as if pleading with her to fix this, to stop how she was hurting. "I'm sorry that you have to deal with this darling," she said quietly, brushing her hair away from her face. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."

"Shush, you're perfect. You just come with a really, really awful mother," Maggie said, passing the tissues to Natalie. "Besides, you didn't do anything wrong, she just knows she couldn't get away with treating Lydia like that." Maggie stroked her hair for a moment, trying to soothe Natalie a little more. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know I…" A small hiccupping sob passed between her lips, and it took a moment for her to begin talking again. "Beetlejuice and I, we've always been profit for her. I was her little beauty queen; BJ was her musical prodigy… She didn't even care when I… It was just a stall in profits." Her thumbs pressed against the scars on her wrists. It was a struggle to say, even though Maggie already knew all of it.

Maggie nodded, making the executive decision that tonight called for sweatpants and ice cream, and whatever else that Natalie wanted. "Come on, your brother and Lydia won't be back for a while, why don't we get cozy and relax? Anything you want."

"What did I ever do to deserve you?"

"Love isn't about deserving sweetheart. Now get up, pajamas, blankets, everything you need to be happy; your brother and Lydia shouldn't be back for another few hours."

As if he were in defiance of anything said about him, even when he wasn't around, Beetlejuice walked through the door, Lydia in tow and sporting a black eye. "Oh man, you guys will not believe who we ran into while we were out."

Lydia was able to read the room better than Beetlejuice, and she walked over to Natalie and Maggie, both who looked shocked and upset. "It was only a little fight, turns out Maggot Death likes the same bars as us," she explained. "Are you two okay?"

"You know how Juno is," Natalie explained quietly, a weak smile on her lips.

"I guess lashing out miiiiiight not have been the best plan," she said bashfully, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm sorry Natalie, I didn't think."

"You defended yourself, I'm proud of you for that." When Lydia didn't look entirely convinced, Natalie pulled her into a hug. "You're talented, we all know that. You know that. I am incredibly proud of you."

"Hey, can I get a hug? Lydia only went on Twitter, I got punched in the face by a Mick Jagger wannabe."

"Everyone just get on the couch," Maggie said as she returned to the room with a pile of blankets in her arms. "I think all of us deserve some relaxing and happy times, and lucky for all of you I make the best hot cocoa. So, get cozy and I'll join you soon."

Maggie watched them. The scene of a perfectly loving and dysfunctional family. Beetlejuice was excitedly telling Natalie what had happened, talking himself up while Lydia grounded him. Natalie looked happy to sit and listen to them, her tears from earlier slowly drying. For a moment, serene and chaotic all at once, the hotel room felt like home.


	3. Paranoia

Dewey and Jade were getting scolded. Not by Ros, which would probably come later, but by Ned. "You two are going to kill me one day," he said, gently dabbing some antiseptic on Dewey's face. Rushing them out of the bar had been stressful, walking back to the hotel with an injured Dewey and Jade who had been insisting that they go back and finish the fight for the first block.

"We didn't start the fight Ned," Jade pointed out, glaring from her place sprawled on the couch. "He punched Dewey; Dewey hit back. That's fair."

"You broke a chair over him Jade! Is that fair? I would love to know what exactly you were evening out."

"I didn't want him to hit Dewey again! Fuck, do you seriously expect me to just stand there when someone gets hit?"

"We're lucky that no one took any videos of you two," Ned said, putting a band-aid as he finished cleaning the cut on Dewey's cheek. "There. Don't get in any more fights for a while."

"Yeah, I won't… I lost a few of my pins though, think I should bill that Lawrence fucker for them?"

Ned didn't respond, not finding any humor in the attempt at a joke. Jade sat up, raising her eyebrows. "Which ones?"

"Uh… pronouns, trans rights, and… The one you gave me that says kick me." Dewey was running his finger down his jacket, noting the absent pins.

"Maybe people will stop kicking you now," Jade joked, smiling before she caught Ned's eye and shrank back. "Too soon for jokes? Yeah? Yeah, okay."

"Both of you just… Go to bed. Let's just hope that Ros doesn't find out about this."

* * *

Ros found out. It shouldn't have been a surprise, she somehow found out just about everything. Dewey and Jade seemed convinced that she must have a network of informants, or someone following the group whenever they went out. Ned knew it was because she could look at Dewey's face and see the cut on it and that there had been around twenty people mentioning the fight online. Thank god no one believed them, but Ros knew exactly how impulsive the group was.

Ned and Jade had gone out to breakfast. It was something that they liked to do, for the "unity of the band" but it required waking up before noon, which was a near-impossible task for Dewey to do. Unfortunately for Dewey, this meant that no one was able to warn him that Ros was in his hotel room, leaning over where he was sprawled out on the couch. "Dewey!"

Dewey sat up with a start, startling and staring up at her with wide eyes. "What the fuck Ros! Knock or something!"

"I did, you didn't answer."

"So you broke into the room?" He finally fully sat up, still wearing his clothing from the night before, his hair going every direction, eyeliner smudged. Dewey, if he could see himself, would have been proud of how perfectly slept in his eyeliner looked. It was incredibly punk after all.

"Yes. We need to talk," she began, and as she spoke Dewey, he noticed that she was holding a clipboard. She sat next to him, crossing her legs and looking at him over her glasses. "The other two I already spoke to, but you were asleep still."

"This is about the fight, isn't it?" Dewey groaned, rubbing his face. "Listen, he threw the first punch, that's all I have to say."

"Dewey I… I am not worried that you defended yourself," she said, looking down at the clipboard and drumming her fingers on it nervously. Each perfectly manicured nail hit at an exact rhythm. "I understand that you three want to have rock star lifestyles, whatever that means to you, but I need you, all three of you, to come home safe. I don't know what I would do if I lost all of you."

"Probably find a new band to manage… But hey, Ros, it's not like any of us are going to die or anything. You don't need to worry." Dewey set his hand over hers, temporarily stopping the tapping. "I know we make bad choices but come on, you're in your own head again."

"Maybe I am, but still. The last day you all have been totally rash." She looked down at his hand over hers, sighing softly. It brought a sense of security, but she wouldn't admit that to anyone but herself. Not yet at least. "Your social media manager has been dealing with some really harsh tweets from teenagers, turns out the Lawrence & Lydia fanbase is… Passionate."

"That's not fair to Ned, he just wanted to wear mesh." Despite how casual he was being, he did feel guilty. He and Jade fed off of each other, a cycle of chaos and antagonism directed at the rest of the world. They hadn't changed that as their fame grew, but he was starting to think it should. Sure, assholes like Lawrence getting punched (especially by him) was pretty great, but he hated to see Ros upset. "We'll reel it in, okay? What did Jade and Ned say?"

"Jade was defiant, but I think she just likes to argue with Ned," Ros said, cracking a small smile. "They did both agree to not get into any more fights or cause another scandal though. However, I've heard that promise before Dewey. I'll hold all of you to it."

"I promise Ros," he said, voice losing any of his showmanship. Right now, he wasn't Dewey Finn the rock star, he was Dewey Finn, a man with a crush in front of the woman he cared about, promising her something he wouldn't consider for anyone else. "Why don't you come hang out with us tomorrow night. We'll help you unwind, and you can keep us in check."

"Well, I don't know if that's exactly professional Dewey." She retracted her hand from under his, and it felt colder. Dewey's eyes fell for a moment but refocused on her.

"Ros, plenty of managers are out there doing god knows what, and you're scared of a few drinks? I think it's a good idea."

"You thought bashing a fellow musician on television was a good idea."

"That was yesterday! This is today! After the concert tonight we can hang out in the hotel room, and you can tell us how to act like normal people. And, bonus of hotel room parties, it is literally impossible to start or be involved in a bar fight."

"Fine, I'll stick around, just for a couple of drinks." Her heart skipped a beat when she saw how Dewey's face lit up. He looked so soft, safe even. She blinked a couple of times to return her mind to the conversation at hand. "Then I need to get some sleep and start figuring out how to make this whole Lawrence & Lydia scandal blow over."

Dewey nodded, fidgeting with his hands. "I'm gonna practice for a while… I'd say good luck, but I feel like shutting up is better."

Ros sighed, standing and crossing something off of the list on her clipboard. "I appreciate it Dewey. I really do."

* * *

Beetlejuice was in the shape of a starfish on his bed. No one was really sure when he went to sleep, or how long he slept for, but once he was asleep, he tended to stay that way. Well, stay that way long enough for Lydia to have some fun.

Maggie grabbed the goth girl's wrist, plucking the sharpie from her fingers. "And what exactly were you planning here?"

"I was going to write a get well soon message for Beej." Lydia stuck out her bottom lip, a perfect vision of innocence to anyone who didn't know her. Maggie simply stared blankly back in response. "Fine. I was going to draw on his face."

"That's what I thought." Maggie twirled the pen in her fingers, pressing her lips together. "Juno still wants to have a talk with you two today, probably best that her son doesn't have his face graffitied."

Lydia nodded, looking anywhere but Maggie's face. "Natalie was crying when we got back last night… She's going to yell at Beej too."

Maggie nodded, her eyes also avoiding her bandmate. "Juno is a harsh woman Lydia. Lawrence and Natalie insist she's a good manager though. Even if she wasn't, the contracts are pretty tight."

The teen thought about when she first joined the band. Her mother had just died, she was desperate to get away. Beetlejuice was the first person who actually made her feel seen, saw her pain and asked if she wanted to do something about it. Sure, when she had egged her father's house, which was also her own home, it didn't go well, but the musical outlet was perfect. All of her pent up rage and hurt released into songs.

Beetlejuice, even though he wasn't biologically her family, was unquestionably her brother. He took care of her when no one else would, especially not her father. Maybe that was why it was so easy for Juno to convince her that begging her father to sign an ill-advised contract was a good idea. Then they were stuck turning the punk rage music into toned down pop. It sold better, Juno had told them, as if they had started making music just to sell it.

"I hate her. I wish she would just die." The teen's upper lip curled in disgust, and she was now glaring at the ground.

"You know what? Me too Lydia."

Beetlejuice, in the time that they had been talking, had finally woken up. He had heard the end of the conversation but didn't say anything. He simply leaned against the door, continuing to listen.

"Is there any way we can leave?" She regretted this every day, tying her best friend closer to a mother who so obviously didn't care about him. "Maggie, I don't know how much more I can take of pretending to be happy all the time."

Maggie didn't know how to respond. This gig was the best of her life, and the first time she had been able to find real love. And yet, there was no denying the pain that she saw Natalie and Beetlejuice suffer at the hands of their combination manager-mother. Maggie saw herself in Lydia, a younger version. Even if they were close in age, Maggie felt worlds older than Lydia. Perhaps suffering aged you. "The only way to break the contract is to break up the band. Now come on, eat something before Juno gets here."

Beetlejuice sunk down against the door, hugging his knees to his chest. He felt a familiar anxiety twist in his guts like a snake. The familiar anxieties creeping back in. Talking like that meant that they were going to abandon him, that he and Natalie would be alone again, that Lydia wouldn't be his friend, that he was as worthless as his mother made him feel, that he didn't really matter to anyone. That's the only possible thing it could have meant. Right?


	4. Tension

Ned and Jade, outside of times that they were appearing in public as members of Maggot Death, generally looked like normal respectable people. It was strange almost, how they went from over the top and showy to looking more like teachers with a day off. Part of it was fun, most of it was because it meant that they could eat breakfast out without worrying about needing to sign an autograph or being asked horrifyingly intrusive questions. Jade still swore that when someone asked if she had ever broken a leg bone on her left leg that it was a fetish thing. Boundaries were not the strong suit of super fans.

"So, do you think Dewey survived talking to Ros?" Jade asked, looking up at Ned.

"Yes. Jade, you realize that the only reason that our talk with Ros went so badly is because you need to argue every point."

"Dewey would have backed me up," Jade pointed out, like that justified her attitude at all. Dewey tended to back up anything that most people would describe as ill-advised. The two of them had met at a college party years ago, when Dewey had followed the sound of Jade shrieking at a man a foot taller than her about how she was going to fight him over his opinion of Pink Floyd. Jade had been a student, another education major that Ned knew in passing, and Dewey had been there looking for free beer. It was the first fight that the two of them had ended up in together, but it was far from the last. Ned mostly remembered that night because he was stuck driving not one, but two idiots to Urgent Care.

"Since when has Dewey backing you up ever made something a good idea?" Ned was exasperated, even though he loved the other members of the band. "Jade, the fight was a mistake. You need to stop arguing for the sake of arguing."

"Fine, fine, I get it," she said, throwing up her hands in defeat. The impulse to start an argument out of this was strong, but she didn't give in. Ned didn't deserve to deal with that, and it would only prove his point. "Hey, I was thinking… I'm gonna go look for some pins to replace the one's Dewey lost. I'll meet up with you back at the hotel?"

Ned smiled, nodding. He screwed up his face when Jade dragged him down to kiss his forehead, a sign of affection she gave to nearly everyone. Something incredibly soft from someone who had hit another person with a chair the night before. "Yeah, I'll see you later Lewis."

"Keep being a nerd Schneebly."

* * *

Juno had arrived. Lydia and Beetlejuice were seated on the couch, as close to each other as they could be, as she lectured them. It was a couple of tweets, and a few people mentioning the fight online that had resulted in this.

Beetlejuice felt like he was going to throw up. It didn't matter what Juno's tone was, she always knew how to make him hate himself that much more. He gripped his knee, jagged fingernails cutting into his skin through the fabric.

"Lawrence! Are you even listening to me?" Her voice was raspy and harsh, cutting into his mind. "Can you even manage to focus for one damn minute?"

"I'm listening Mom," he said quietly, trying to focus on the hotel carpet, counting the stripes in the pattern to calm himself.

"Stop mumbling! And look at me when I talk to you damnit!" She was glaring when he met her eyes. "You're lucky that no one got any video of that fight! I had my doubts it was true, but I should have expected you to do something that stupid!"

"I'm sorry Mom." He spoke clearly, but Lydia could hear he was afraid still. She reached over, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. He squeezed back; glad he had an ally. Even if he wasn't sure that Lydia was his ally anymore.

"Can you just lay off already? All either of us did was defend the shitty music that you make us make!" Lydia glared at Juno, knowing that the woman had limited power over her.

Juno let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a grunt, glaring back at the teenager. Lydia was just glad that her attention was off of Beetlejuice. "You're lucky that your tweets and those idiots in Maggot Death actually helped our sales. Don't think that you're invincible just because your name is in the band. I can find a dozen bassists who would kill for your part."

"Wait, sales went up? And you're yelling at us?" Lydia scoffed, tossing her hands up in the air. One of Beetlejuice's hands came up with hers, he had a pretty tight grip. "Why are you wasting our time with this?"

"Because you have an image to maintain and idiotic fights won't help that!" She was leaning over where Lydia was sitting, and it took everything in Beetlejuice's power not to curl up into a ball. She straightened up again, her nose curling with disgust as she looked over at her son. "Lawrence!"

He looked up at her, and despite everything, despite nearly three decades of mistreatment, he still hoped that the next words out of her mouth would be kind. It was a desperate sort of craving, one that he could never manage to make go away.

"Do something to make me proud for once."

Close enough.

Juno leaving left a cold mark in the hotel room, but things slowly returned to normal, or as normal as they could be. Natalie left her room and came back out into the general area, Maggie following close behind. Beetlejuice knew his sister looked shaken, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as she had been after talking to their Mother herself.

Beetlejuice forced a smile, his well-rehearsed happiness returning the moment that he could justify it. "Well! That was dumb!" He started to throw on his jacket, the one that Juno hated because it made him look like himself, and not the perfectly manicured pop icon she wanted him to be. It was ratty and objectively kind of ugly, but he had been repairing it for ages, and it made him feel safe. He needed safety right now. "I'm going out, bye!"

"Wait, Beej, do you want to talk?" Lydia crossed her arms, frowning. "I mean you're just leaving after that?"

"Yeah?" Part of him wanted to open up to Lydia, but he remembered the conversation from earlier. He knew that she would be leaving soon anyways. Opening up would just give her another reason to leave sooner, to get away from the damaged idiot he was. "I'll be back later, don't be weird about it." Before anyone could say anything else, he left, making sure that no one saw the flash of pain that ran across his face.

* * *

Being a manager meant that, on occasion, Ros got phone calls from people that she didn't know. Usually, it was another person involved in Maggot Death's most recent tour, or another artist looking to collaborate on something. Once it had been a particularly dedicated fan who wanted to know what hospital Dewey had been born in. That call hadn't been much fun. So, Ros was only the regular amount of worried when her phone rang, and she didn't recognize the number.

"Rosalie Mullins?" The voice on the other end was scratchy, like someone who had been smoking a pack a day for longer than Ros had been alive.

"That's me, who are you?"

"Juno Shoggoth. I manage Lawrence & Lydia."

"Listen, if this is about the fight, I'm willing to come to any agreement to avoid it being in the media."

"No, no, nothing like that," Juno said, taking a moment to take a drag of her cigarette. "That interview yesterday, our sales spiked. Better than any promotion we've done for ourselves in a long time. Did the same happen for you?"

Ros shifted on her feet. "We did, but we also saw more hatred directed at us than we have in a long time. I don't exactly like what you're implying, our social media manager was nearly sobbing with what some people were saying."

"Tell her to suck it up. If we keep this feud going both of us could make a hell of a lot more money."

"I have no interest in selling our dignity. What does your band even think about that?"

"Who cares what they think? If you're so worried about what they think then talk to them, but do you really think that any of them will feel bad about getting to speak their opinions?"

"I'll talk it over with them," Ros said, avoiding answering the other question. "I hope you understand that I value their opinions immensely, I won't do this if they're not on board."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. You're all one big happy family who cares about each other. Find out and get back to me."

Back in the hotel room Maggot Death was asleep. They looked uncharacteristically sweet. Ned and Dewey were leaned on each other, Dewey's head less on Ned's shoulder and closer to his bicep. Jade was sprawled across their laps, one arm above her head and the other hanging off the couch.

Ros smiled when she saw them. Their affection had taken some getting used to at first, they were so casual about it. Jade kissing foreheads, Ned and Dewey comfortable holding each other, but she knew that this wasn't just a friend group. They were family to each other and treated each other as such.

There was enough time before the concert that she didn't need to worry about waking them up just yet. For now, things were serene.


	5. Relax

Beetlejuice hadn't come home yet. Lydia had texted him, called him, even checked out a few places that she thought he might be, with no luck. Natalie had assured her that this had happened before, that eventually, he would come home. She didn't tell Lydia that she had gotten a few responses from Beetlejuice, and she was fairly sure that he was far from okay.

[sms-Natalie] BJ, where are you? I thought you would be home by now.

[sms-Lawrence] Maggie and Lydia are gonna leave. I don't wanna see them.

[sms-Natalie] They aren't going to leave. I think you're getting paranoid again.

[sms-Lawrence] I HEARD THEM TALKING! PEOPLE ALWAYS LEAVE!

[sms-Natalie] Please come home.

[sms-Lawrence] I will later. But I don't want to see them now.

[sms-Natalie] Be safe.

He hadn't responded after that, but she knew that when he said that he would be home that he meant it. At least, she hoped that he meant it.

* * *

Maggot Death, as always, was high energy when they performed. Dewey threw himself into every song, and his enthusiasm infected the crowd. His voice rang out clearly and his guitar howled like an angel. Jade spent most of the concert nearly jumping with joy as she played, still managing to provide a steady rhythm on the bass. Ned stood behind the drums, sure, but his solos made the crowd scream with glee, and Jade and he played off of each other like a rhythm section from someone's fantasies. Dewey adored how they sounded, and he let them know it after every show.

At the end of the concert, the energy of both the crowd and the performers spent, they finished with a slow song. Dewey's voice purred into the microphone, crooning love to every person in attendance, Ned hunched over his drums, playing perfectly despite his exhaustion, and Jade leaning back slightly, her eyes closed as her fingers played familiar notes with almost no thought, every emotion washing over her like waves wearing down glass into sand.

Dewey thanked the crowd, and they shouted responses, blurring into a swell of noise and appreciation.

Afterward came autographs. No matter how well protected, a few fans still knew where they came out after concerts, and they weren't going to reject their fans. They signed as much as they could before Ros encouraged them to move onward, gently nudging each member towards a car to take them back to the hotel.

Once they were inside the car, they collapsed on each other, a tangled mess of sweat, arms holding on to each other, and heavy breathing from the physical exhaustion of being on stage.

Then, Jade jerked to the side, leaning across Ned's lap to get something out of the cupholder on the car door. She passed the small bag to Dewey, grinning.

"What did you get me?" he said, looking over at her and smiling. When he didn't get any response, he cocked his head. "Non-verbal? Or just being a bastard?"

Jade held up her pointer finger to indicate his first guess was right, and he ruffled her hair in response. The energy spent at the concert made talking difficult later in the night, at least for Jade. All she needed was some time to recharge and she would be back to her usual self, and Ned would be able to beg her to not keep giving Dewey ideas again. She mimed opening the bag, waving her hand at him to encourage him.

"Yeah I get the message Lewis," he said, shaking his head. When he opened the bag he grinned, delighted to see a few new pins to replace the ones he had lost. The trans flag was put on rapidly, along with a new pin that proudly displayed his pronouns, but there were a few joke pins that he wanted to decide between before committing to them. Or he could rotate. "Thanks Jade." He ruffled her hair again, laughing when he realized she had just finished fixing it after the first ruffle.

Jade flipped him off, but at this point, it was more a gesture of affection than anything else.

The rest of the car ride was quiet, Dewey and Ned held on to each other by the forearms, Jade with her eyes closed between them, leaning on Ned.

Back at the hotel room, the trio stumbled into their hotel room. They were definitely at the point financially where they could afford separate rooms, but it didn't feel right. To some degree they liked to feel like they were still fighting for their fame, like every concert was hard-won. The thrill of being famous wasn't anything even close to the thrill of getting famous.

What was different from most nights was that Ros was here. Dewey beamed at her, and it was enough to light up the room. Well, light up the room for her at least. Her heart fluttered, but she did her best to ignore it. "I need to talk to you three about something fairly important," she said, knowing that whatever they decided about the manufactured feud would have a fairly large impact on the next few days especially.

"Ros come on! Can't business wait until tomorrow?" Dewey said, his shoulders slumping and smile rapidly fading from his face. He wanted to hang out with Ros, the person he sometimes saw crack through Manager Mullins. "Please?"

Ros looked at Dewey wordlessly for a moment, the continued. "I was contacted by Juno Shoggoth-"

"The Momager of Lawrence & Lydia?" Ned said, scoffing. "Isn't that woman a vulture?"

"Ned. Let me finish," Ros said, and he withered under her gaze. Ros was their friend, sure, but she held authority. "When you all decided to bash Lawrence & Lydia, they saw a jump in album sales. So, did we honestly. She… suggested that we continue this feud. I didn't want to agree without you all being on board."

The band stared at her for a moment, looking at each other. There was a form of silent communication that Ros couldn't read.

"Okay, I'm a fan of insulting people, especially if it's that Lawrence dick," Dewey began, Jade nodding in agreement. "But I don't want to be a sellout." Jade only shrugged at that. She was fairly content being rude for whatever reason.

"I'm not going to participate, never been able to control those two though," Ned said, holding up his hands in defeat. "If they want to, I won't stop them."

Ros nodded, drumming her fingers against the countertop. "I'll talk to her, tomorrow. Tonight, let's just celebrate."

Jade grinned, walking over to the little kitchen that the hotel room had. He watched as she pulled out some whiskey. "All right Lewis, good start,' he said, frowning when she went to the fridge and pulled out pickle juice. "Oh my god stop doing picklebacks. In my good Christian home?"

Jade merely stared at him before doing a shot of just the pickle juice, grinning as Dewey groaned in disgust. He put the pickle juice away, pouring some whiskey and handing it to Jade. "I am begging you," he said, sighing with relief as she took the drink. He looked to Ros, as if to ask for sympathy in his plight of managing his bandmates.

She smiled at him, gently patting his cheek. He leaned into the touch, even though it was gone quickly, and his eyes followed her with a smile.

Jade and Ned mimed gagging behind Ros' back, and Dewey considered throwing something at them, but thought better of it after a moment. He wanted tonight to be nice, to be something that he could look back on fondly. Something that Ros would look back on fondly as well, hopefully enough that she would say yes if he happened to ask her out to dinner. She made him lovesick.

He sat by her on the couch, holding a beer between his hands and leaning forward, elbows perched on his knees. For a moment he was quiet, absorbing the sound around him, Ned and Jade discussing something, which was really Ned talking and interpreting what Jade was gesturing out loud, the rush of traffic outside, music from a few rooms over. He loved it.

"Dewey, I wanted to thank you for inviting me over, I know I'm not always easy to get along with," Ros said, smiling at him.

He beamed back. "I like having you around Ros, no need to thank me for that," he said, reaching over and tucking a bit of her hair behind her ear. "Besides, not like we would have anything to celebrate without you."

"You give me too much credit," Ros said, her cheeks turning a soft shade of pink. "Without your music, I wouldn't have anyone to manage."

Ned and Jade silently moved themselves to the balcony of the hotel room, not needing a clear sign to know that the other two clearly wanted some privacy.

"Ros I…" Dewey sat quietly, unable to find the next words to say. "Ros, can I kiss you?"

Ros looked at him, surprised. The pink on her face turned to a flaming red in less than a second. "Dewey, I don't know if that's exactly professional."

Dewey felt his heart drop to the bottom of his gut, and he could have dropped to the ground if he weren't already sitting. "Right, right. I'm sorry I-"

"Now that isn't a no," Ros continued, shooting a look over at Dewey. Had she been messing with him? He couldn't tell. "We would just need to take extra precautions to make sure that our work lives and our personal lives stay separate, make sure nothing inappropriate happens."

Dewey stared at her, letting out a nervous laugh. "Ros you're going to kill me," he said eventually, taking her face in his hands and pulling her in for a kiss. He was tender, not pushing her any farther than a simple kiss for now. When his lips left hers he still cupped her cheek, smiling and staring into her eyes.

* * *

It was getting late in the café Beetlejuice found himself in. He didn't want to go back to the hotel room, to see Natalie and Lydia and Maggie. If he was right, Maggie and Lydia definitely hated him now. If he was wrong, he was just another paranoid idiot.

There were very few people that Beetlejuice trusted fully. One of them was Natalie, but he was too scared to talk to her right now. She was worried about him already; she didn't need to be more worried. Another was Lydia, who he was fairly sure was going to leave soon and was the source of his most recent bout of paranoia. Calling her would only make everything much, much worse. Still, there was one more person, or really, two people who worked as a unit. They had never let him down before, and he smiled when he saw a familiar face pop up on his phone screen.

"Hey Babs," he said, gravely voice coming out more exhausted than he realized he was. "Adam around?"

"He's cooking! Beej you sound exhausted, what's going on?" Barbara said, Adam coming to stand behind her when he heard her on video call. "Are you with your band?"

"I don't think they want to see me Babs," he said, perking up when Adam walked close to the camera. "Hey sexy, how are you doing?"

Adam rolled his eyes, wrapping an arm around Barbara. "Very funny Beetlejuice, what's going on?"

Maybe that was why he called, because on some level he knew that they wouldn't let him off the hook if he tried to avoid answering their questions or dealing with his emotions. "Lydia is gonna leave. Mags too, but… Lydia is like my little sister, and everyone always leaves Adam! I thought she was different but she's just like everyone else."

"Beetlejuice you know that isn't true," Barbara said, Adam nodding in agreement. "Why on earth would you think that? You know Lydia is a good kid."

Beetlejuice let out a whine, burying his face into his jacket. It made him feel safer. "Her and Maggie were talking, about Mom," he said, avoiding looking at the camera of his phone. "Last time someone got talking about how much they hate Mom I ended up alone."

Adam sighed, and he and Barb shared a look. They had a way of communicating, one that only they understood. "Beetlejuice, why don't you try talking to her? She's your best friend."

He buried his face farther in his jacket, not responding. Eventually, he did peek back up, tears streaming down his face, which was now red, eyes a little puffy. Before he could say anything else, he was cut off by the impact of a teenager to his side. The teen had found him, and she hugged him tight. Beetlejuice hugged back after a moment, his body shaking. "Hey kid, what's all the fuss?"

"You left Beej! What happened?"

"Just got tired of looking at your ugly face," he said, sticking out his tongue. Lydia rolled her eyes.

"Beej. Come on, let's go home."

He let out an exaggerated groan, leaning his head back. "One moment," he said, turning back to the couple on his phone. "Adam, Babs, thank you for the very sexy conversation. Work on the striptease though, it's clumsy. Bye!" Without waiting for a response, he hung up.

Lydia folded her arms. "Why did you leave? When were you planning on coming back?"

"Not like you'd care," he grumbled, looking away from her. "You and Maggie talked about getting away from Mom. You have to get rid of me too, and I know I'm not that great."

The teenager rolled her eyes, leaning her head back. "I'm not going to leave you, idiot. Maggie and I want to get rid of Juno and keep you around. I mean seriously, you think Maggie would bail on Natalie? And you're like the best friend I have, you're not getting rid of me that easily."

Beetlejuice shrunk back, avoiding eye contact. He didn't have anything to say in response to that, so he just stood.

"Head back now?"

"Yeah… Hey, why don't we put those jumping snake things in the cereal boxes again? Maggie screamed so loud last time, better than an alarm clock."


	6. On the Road Again

Ros and Dewey were asleep on the couch. They looked almost serene, leaning against each other. Neither had drunk heavily the night before, only a few shots, but they had been talking, and getting so lost in what the other had to say that eventually they just remained on the couch, fingers intertwined, Dewey's head rested on her shoulder, and her head on top of his.

Ros woke up before Dewey. That wasn't an accomplishment, most nocturnal creatures woke up before he did. She opened her eyes to see Jade and Ned standing in the kitchen, Ned holding a pan, and Jade wound up to hit it with a spoon.

"Good morning Ros," Jade said, flashing a devious smile that would have been mirrored by Dewey if he weren't the planned victim of his bandmate's actions. "You might want to move; he gets kind of jerky sometimes when we do this."

Ros moved away from Dewey, one hand cupping his cheek gently, so it didn't fall and wake him up. She wanted him to have a few more seconds of serenity, and she figured talking the two in the kitchen out of whatever they had planned would be useless. She was right, considering the moment that she was out of the range of Dewey flailing a loud banging rang through the hotel room.

Dewey, predictably, jerked upright, looking terrified. "Can I have one day where no one wakes me up like an idiot?!"

"Get up before noon. Besides, we need to get in the tour van," Ned reminded him, tossing an orange at him. "Eat something, we're leaving in an hour."

Dewey opened his mouth to say something in response but caught Ros out of the corner of his eye. "It's every day with them," he said as if he wouldn't do the same if he woke up earlier.

Ros smiled at him, standing up. "I need to get going too Dewey. My flight leaves in a few hours, I'll see you in the next city," she said, leaning down and kissing his cheek.

His face softened, and he nodded. "Yeah, I'll see you then," he said, looking happy until Ros was gone. The moment she was no longer privy to his actions, he threw the orange back at Ned as hard as he could. Ned managed to catch the orange with his chest and doubled over in pain, Jade cackling as she watched. "Yeah, keep laughing Lewis, you're next," Dewey warned, walking towards the bathroom to get ready for the day. Being cooped up in a bus for hours on end was awful, it was worse when someone forgot to shower.

The trio was on the bus not long after. They had been on the road before, and were familiar with getting packed quickly, making sure nothing was left behind. As they started to move, Jade looked down at her phone. "Hey, Ros told Shoggoth we're good with the whole rivals thing. We have permission to bully a teenager on the internet now."

"You know only one person in the band is a teenager, right?"

"Yeah, but bassist stuff. I need to be mean to the other bassist." She waved her hand at Ned as if this should be obvious. He just rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. Jade huffed, looking over to Dewey. "You get it." It was a statement more than anything else.

Dewey shrugged. "Doesn't really feel right when we have permission to do it," he said, shrugging.

"Last night you were all for it."

"Last night I was thinking about how fun it is to insult Lawrence. It's not very punk rock to make money off of a fake feud." Dewey seemed torn, fidgeting with his hands.

"Hey, remember that night we met?" Jade nudged his shoulder gently, hoping to break his focus. "When you made sure I only needed to go to Urgent Care and not a hospital?"

"You mean the time we got our asses kicked because of Pink Floyd?" Dewey smiled at the memory, remembering the intensity Jade had about music, and the rage she was able to funnel into bass playing. "Yeah, I remember that, kind of hard to forget."

"If someone handed you twenty bucks after that fight, would it make it any different?"

"No, but if I knew I was gonna get twenty bucks before I got in that fight it would be different."

Jade nodded, seeing his point of view. "I don't know, I guess I just want to be an asshole," she said, laughing. "I mean the guy makes shitty music and he punched you, I feel like getting paid to cyber-bully him isn't that bad. Especially if he's getting paid too."

"You already hit him in the back with a chair, isn't that enough?"

"Dewey, is today really the day that you tell me about kindness and taking it easy on people?" She looked up at him, doing her best puppy-dog eyes. "Dewey come on; I look like an idiot if it's just me. Besides, even if Ros had explicitly told us not to do this, we probably would have anyways."

"Hey! Maybe you, I'm trying pretty hard to not rebel against Ros," he said, flicking her in the forehead in response to the pouting. "I don't know, I just feel like a sellout! Like corporate negotiated rivalries are bullshit!"

"Yes, but also he punched you and I don't respect their music."

"Yeah, they do suck," Dewey said, thinking. "Fine, yeah." He paused, looking over at Jade. "Why are you so adamant about this?"

"I'm actively a bad person," she said, rolling her eyes when Dewey stared at her blankly. She didn't really expect him to believe that, right? "Listen, you and Ned are both guys, you've known each other for ages. I'm newer, people know that. On top of that, don't know if you've noticed, but I am in fact a woman. People will never take me as seriously as you two, no matter what. So, I'm going to blow off some steam and be a jackass, because when I do that people don't pay attention to… I don't know, my tits? It's fucking stupid. I get pissed and if I talk about it in an interview then I'm a bitchy feminist."

"You are a bitchy feminist," Dewey pointed out, and if anyone else had said it Jade would have been annoyed. Instead, she hugged him, face sinking into his shoulder. "You wanna go do a stream and be rude on the internet?"

* * *

Beetlejuice was doing better. He was still shaken, a paranoid breakdown would do that after all, but Natalie was making sure he wasn't alone. He appreciated that, but god it was stifling. It didn't help that they were on their way to the next city, and it wasn't like he could go anywhere, so it was just annoying now.

"Hey, Pres?" Beetlejuice was shouting up to the driver of the bus, getting out of his seat and scuttling up to right next to the seat. "How long until we pull over? I wanna bolt. Natalie will never see it coming."

"Beetlejuice! You need to be farther back. It's dangerous," Presley said, nervously glancing over at him before her eyes turned back to the road.

"Presleeeeeeeeeeeeey what's the worst that could happen?"

"You could go right through the windshield! We stop in two hours, sit down."

Beetlejuice groaned, mumbling something as he walked back, flopping in his seat. "Nat why is Presley so bossy?"

"Be nice, she's even younger than Lydia."

"Nat, Lydia's eighteen."

"Mhm."

Beetlejuice sat in silence for a moment, then slapped his hands against his face. "Oh my god, our Mom is so fucking evil."

"Oh yeah," Natalie said, setting a hand on his shoulder. "Yeah, it's really fucked up."

"Is that even legal?"

"No idea." Natalie placed her hand back in her lap. "Pretty sure if we questioned it then Mom would send Pres back."

"She's… Her too?"

Natalie nodded sadly, communicating a truth that the whole band knew, but that none of them could verbalize. Juno didn't have to be there for her presence to be felt.

Beetlejuice leaned back, ending up laying across Lydia's lap, knocking her phone out of her hands. "Lydia why is my Mom so evil. Lydia. Lydia. Lydia answer me."

Lydia stared down at Beetlejuice, her face void of any mercy. Sometimes he swore that deep down she was a demon, or some sort of ice monster. Lydia told him that he was weird. She was right. "I don't know… A combination of the inherently corrupt nature of capitalism, combined with a clawing hole inside of her that can only be filled with money and other people's misery no matter the cost," she said, waving her hand in a circle above Beetlejuice's face as she spoke, and his eyes followed her hand like a cat on a rodent. When she stopped speaking and moving her hand, he stared up at her. "Or she might just be Satan incarnate."

Beetlejuice shot up to a sitting position, twisting with the motion so he was still facing Lydia. "That's definitely it!"

"How did you move like that?" she said, squinting.

"Oh, my back hurts so much," he said in a happy voice, expression not changing from the one he used while joking around. "Let's get some holy water and spray it at my Mom. She'll probably go all Wizard of Oz and melt."

"Free Slurpee," Lydia said in response, her nose wrinkling at her own gross joke, a happy giggle coming from her lips.

"Wait- Hey Maggie! Maggie, you're a priest, right?"

Maggie glanced up from the book she was reading, staring at Beetlejuice with bewilderment. "Why do you think I'm ordained?"

"Because you worked in Vegas, and everybody who lives in Vegas is ordained."

"No, they aren't. I was a magician's assistant, not a priest."

"Then how do you have all those drive-through wedding places?" Beetlejuice folded his arms, as if he had just made a very profound point, or as if this would change the fact that Maggie was definitely not ordained.

"Because getting ordained is super easy," Maggie said, looking over to Natalie as if she were begging for answers to why this was happening, and getting nothing more than a sympathetic hand set on her shoulder.

Beetlejuice and Lydia looked at each other, a kind of psychic link between the two of them. "That doesn't make sense Maggie," the teenager stated bluntly.

"Yeah, if it's so easy, then why aren't you ordained?"

Maggie shoved her face into her book, mumbling something quietly, maybe a prayer for mercy, before she looked back up. "Why do you two want to know if I'm ordained?"

"Oh! I want holy water to melt my Mom."

She stared at him, her eyes wide and her lips pressed so tightly into a line that they had turned slightly white. "Yeah," Maggie said, her voice squeaking. "Yeah, that makes perfect sense."

Beetlejuice and Lydia nodded, glad that she saw their point of view, even though she looked like she was on the brink of laughing, crying, or some other outburst. Lydia opened her mouth to speak again but glanced over when her phone started vibrating from where Beetlejuice had knocked it out of her hands before. A momentary reprieve for Maggie, and a good excuse to return to her book.

"Hey, Maggot Death is doing a live stream apparently," she said, flipping through some notifications. "And apparently, we have a fake rivalry now, that's fun. Here I was hating them for free."

A mischievous grin spread across Beetlejuice's face, and he started digging through his bag. "Hey Lydia, remember that night that I punched that Dewey asshole?"

"Yeah, it was two days ago, pretty hard to forget," Lydia said, not following his train of thought yet.

Beetlejuice popped up a moment later, the same mildly unsettling grin on his face. A phone was clutched in his hands like a prize. "So, the fun thing about fights is people really don't notice when you grab something," he said. "Especially if their friend is breaking a chair on you."

"Oh my god, why didn't you say you had his phone sooner?" Lydia said, her grin now matching his.

"It's been a busy couple days Lydia! I got punched! I had a horrible mental breakdown! I went out to Denny's this morning! That's a full plate!"

"Fair… What should we do first?" She was flapping her hands with excitement.

Beetlejuice grinned. "You said they were streaming? Why don't we interrupt them?"

* * *

Author's Note: I'm fairly certain there's just the one person reading this fic on this site right now. Thank you very much, I like seeing the little bump on the activity graph from you :)


	7. Pretty Sure Stealing is a Crime

Jade was leaning on Dewey's shoulder as they streamed, answering questions that popped up in the comments section. Plenty of them were fun, and it wasn't long before they had to stop answering questions every now and then to laugh.

"Are we dating? No, that's gross. Have you seen Dewey? Look at him," Jade said, squishing his face. "He's cute but that's not my type."

"Thanks Jade," Dewey said through how she was squishing his face. "Real confidence boost."

"Oh please, like you would say anything different."

"You're right. I like women who are tall enough to ride roller coasters."

Jade gasped in mock offense. "Dewey! I'm five feet tall, I can ride most roller coasters!"

"Most." He stuck his tongue out at her, and Jade huffed. Once they were done behaving like children irritating each other he looked back to the screen. "Okay, next question… Why did you say that stuff about Lawrence & Lydia? That's so mean. Oh em gee, so uncool, frowny face frowny face frowny face."

"It's because they suck," Jade said bluntly. "Listen, sure, for pop music they're painfully mediocre, and for music in general they're so bad your ears will bleed, but I get it, there's not a lot of innovation in the torture industry. Someone has to fill that niche." Jade did a mock salute.

Dewey did nothing but widen his eyes at the sheer amount of emojis that appeared in the chat, most of which he could assume were very, very negative. "Why are you people watching this if you don't like us?"

"Sometimes people hate-follow other people, like how I follow you on Instagram to comment mean things on all of your selfies."

Dewey opened his mouth to quip back at Jade, but stopped when he saw her phone start ringing, indicating an incoming call from… Well, the contact name said Fearless Frontman, but Dewey was pretty sure that he would know if he was calling Jade right now. "Uh, looks like we have to cut this stream short gang, bye!"

The moment it ended Jade snatched the phone out of his hand, answering the call. She groaned when she saw who it was, turning to face Dewey, silently asking how this happened.

"Hey, babes," Lawrence said from the screen, snapping his fingers and flashing an infuriating grin when he got Jade's attention. It was only met with a scowl. "Hi, welcome back to the main attraction. You know how you hit me in the back with a chair? Kinda hot. Also, super distracting!"

Jade made a series of expressions that some would describe as going through the stages of grief at record speed. "I'm sorry, did you steal Dewey's phone to be a creep?"

"I can be a creep for you babes, if you want." There was far too much eyebrow wiggling for anyone to really pay attention to what he was saying.

Jade gagged, and off-screen Lydia was doing the same. Dewey took the phone out of Jade's hand, not the biggest fan of how this conversation was going. "Can you just send the phone to our next location? I think we're in the same city again."

"No can do Dew-miser," Lawrence said, flashing another grin. "I mean come on; this is… This is very fun. For me, I mean, not for you."

"I can call the cops."

"That wouldn't be very punk rock of you," Lydia said, perching her chin on Lawrence's shoulder.

"She's right."

Dewey looked over at Jade with an expression of betrayal. "Whose side are you on? And Lyla, Lucy, whatever-"

"Lydia."

"Whatever, since when are you and your manufactured pop buddy geniuses on what's punk rock?"

For a moment looks of anger, not manufactured, not directed by some manager, crossed the faces of the two on the screen. It would have been almost scary if Dewey and Jade had been in the same room as them. "You don't know everything about us, you just think you do because you're an idiot," Lydia spat out with more venom than either could have predicted.

"Jesus, it's not like you're being forced to make the damn music," Dewey said, his newly angered expression faltering when the two on the screen didn't respond. "Oh."

"Yeah. Now you're the rude one," Lawrence said, forcing a grin. If he didn't show emotion it wasn't there, it wouldn't hurt him. "So now y0u're the bad guy."

"You stole my phone."

"Aaaaaaand I'm keeping it! Also, I tweeted a bunch of stuff for you, you're welcome. Bye hotties!"

Dewey and Jade sat speechless for a moment. "Why did he call us?" Jade said after a moment, her brow knitting into a confused wrinkle.

"I have no idea," Dewey said, handing Jade her phone back as she stood up. "Pretty sure we threw them off their rhythm with… You know, figuring out that their entire career is a farce."

"Yeah, that could do it," she said. "I'm going to go take a nap, wake me up when we get to Syracuse."

The tour bus was roomy, and according to the website that they had rented it from, was big enough for ten people. Sure, that might be accurate to how many beds there were, but Jade was fairly sure that if there were any more than the three of them (not counting the driver, but Jade did her best to ignore Patty, even on a good day), then she might just snap. Right now though, the bus was relaxing. Sinking into bed and listening to the wind and all the various sounds of the road brought a sort of peace. It told a part of her brain that today was a day off and that she really could relax.

The desire to relax is why she nearly screamed into her pillow when she saw a half dozen unread messages from "Dewey".

(sms-Fearless Frontman) DON'T TELL ANYONE WHAT WE SAID TO YOU

(sms-Fearless Frontman) I WILL HIT YOU WITH A CHAIR

(sms-Fearless Frontman) LYDIA SAID I SHOULD DELETE THAT BECAUSE COPS COULD USE THAT

(sms-Fearless Frontman) HOW TO DELETE TEXTS FROM SOMEONE ELSE'S PHONE

(sms-Fearless Frontman) FUCK

(sms-Fearless Frontman) SERIOUSLY THO DON'T TELL ANYONE

(sms-Jade) Learn how to turn caps lock off. And I don't think we're going to be telling anyone. You're annoying, but we aren't total assholes.

(sms-Fearless Frontman) ONE- NO FUCK YOU I LIKE CAPS LOCK

(sms-Fearless Frontman) TWO- YOU HIT ME WITH A CHAIR. KIND OF ASSHOLE BEHAVIOR IF YOU ASK ME.

(sms-Jade) True. But we aren't about to just… Reveal all that. Now stop texting I'm trying to nap.

(sms-Fearless Frontman) WHAT WOULD U DO IF I WAS THERE WITH YOU LOL

(sms-Jade) Are you trying to hit on me after stealing my friends' phone and calling me an asshole?

(sms-Fearless Frontman) YEAH

(sms-Fearless Frontman) Please ignore Beetlejuice he has dumb idiot disease, the disease where he's dumb and an idiot.

(sms-Jade) Beetlejuice?

(sms-Fearless Frontman) Lawrence. Middle name thing, he prefers it.

(sms-Jade) K. Cool. I'm napping. Please give back the stolen phone.

* * *

Beetlejuice was glaring at Lydia. "Lyds, give me the phone back," he said, tone sounding more like a whiny teenager than the scheming mastermind that he saw himself as.

"That didn't go as planned Beej," she said, shoving the phone into her purse. It was shaped like a bat, and incredibly impractical. Thankfully, it was incredibly goth, which made up for how little she could actually use it. "We let that slip, they could find out the rest."

Beetlejuice let out a whine. "Lyds, come ooooooon."

"Beetlejuice, do you think maybe…" Natalie trailed off, not sure where she was going. "I don't like that they know so much about us now. I know the rivalry is fake, but if they use that, Juno would be enraged." Her nails dug into her skin as she recalled the anger from only a few tweets, and those had accidentally boosted sales. The idea of Juno reacting to something that wasn't wholly positive was terrifying. The rage that Natalie and Beetlejuice had been subjected to in their youth still sent ice through her veins.

"Nat is right Beej. It might be a good idea to, and I hate suggesting this because they seem like assholes, get to know them," Maggie said, setting her hand on Natalie's shoulder, her thumb moving back and forth as a gentle caress. "We can't let this get out, and if they figure out the other stuff we're all fucking dead."

Beetlejuice threw back his head and let out an irritated groan. He didn't care too much about being discovered as a fraud, but he knew that anyone beyond the people in this room knowing the full truth was dangerous. "Fine! But not me first, they hate me."

"You were just hitting on Jade with absolutely no prompting," Natalie pointed out, raising her eyebrows. "You have never had a problem with bothering people who don't like you yet." Natalie had always added on a yet to statements like that, even though she was fairly sure that she had never met someone who really liked her brother after getting harassed by him. It wasn't anyone's cup of tea.

"Yeah, but no one was telling me to do that."

Maggie opened her mouth to say something, but Natalie stopped her, shaking her head. It was a pointless argument, and Natalie didn't want to get sucked into it. "Fuck it, we're likable as hell, and haven't punched anyone or watched punching happen yet," Maggie said, tossing her hands in the air. "I guess we'll befriend the enemy."

"This isn't a military operation darling," Natalie said, and despite how seriously she took the situation, a smile grew at the corners of her mouth. Maggie's drama drew her in, like a moth to a flame. "I don't think that we need to… go all out."

"I'm going to go all out. I'm going to send them a fucking fruit basket and they will fucking love it," Maggie declared with a deep intensity. Natalie took her hands gently, simply nodding along and pressing a kiss to her hands.

"Darling I have no doubts about that."


	8. Double Date

"Ned, why do you have a fruit basket?"

Ned seemed confused as to why he was holding a fruit basket. The tour van had parked less than an hour ago, and it was a hell of a way "I think the drummer for Lawrence & Lydia just handed it to me," he said, setting it on the small counter in their kitchenette. "Did they do something? Did I miss something?"

"Lawrence hit on me, so that was weird," Jade said, scrunching her nose in disgust.

"What?!"

"Oh, and they stole my phone," Dewey said, his voice a tired monotone. "I called it about twenty times from yours."

"They stole your phone?!"

"Ned, please keep up," Dewey said as if this was old news. It was about two hours old, if he was paying attention. He wasn't paying attention, so it had been three hours. "Lawrence stole my phone, he tried flirting with Jade-"

"It was bad."

"It was bad, and now you have a fruit basket." Dewey waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, but his face cracked into confusion. "We also uh… Found out that they're being forced to make music they hate against their will and they seem genuinely miserable but I'm sure that's fine."

Ned stood in one place, staring at a dot on the floor. "That's great guys, just great," he said in a quiet voice, falling back to sit on the couch, which, as it was adjusted to be fit inside a tour bus, was slightly too uncomfortable and slightly too thin to be the kind of couch that any sane person would actually want. "What the fuck do we even do with that information?"

"What can we do?" Dewey said, reaching over and grabbing a strawberry, biting into it. He continued to talk with his mouth full. "Oh, hey guys! Heard that you hate everything that you've ever made! Wanna hang out? Or uh… Hey! We heard you hate everything; we're going to use that against you like the lovely people we are. Does that sound good to you? Does that sound good Ned?"

Ned stared back, unsure of anything that he could say in response that wouldn't just sound stupid. "Thanks for catching me up I guess."

Dewey gave a mock salute. "I'm not mad at you. It's just a bullshit situation."

"What's a bullshit situation?"

The entire band nearly jumped out of their skin when Ros spoke, having not noticed her enter. "You have to start knocking Ros!" Dewey shook his head for a moment, recollecting his thoughts. He went over the events of the last few hours, amazed at Ros's composure. The only emotion she really showed was how the corners of her lips drew ever tighter, and she sat, crossing her legs.

"Well, I think what's best here is that we don't change anything about the whole rivalry. We have an agreement, best to honor that until I get news otherwise." Her tone was calculated, calm. Inside she was a turmoil of worry, about the band in front of her that she cared so much about, and the band that was made up of people who she had never even met in person. What gave a manager so much power to force people to make something that they hated?

"Yeah, I mean there is plenty to insult besides their music," Jade said, glancing down at her phone.

"They just gave us a fruit basket," Ned pointed out as Dewey went to shove another strawberry in his mouth. "I don't want to be mean to people who gave us a fruit basket."

Dewey said something through a mouthful of fruit, gaining nothing but confused looks from everyone else around him. He swallowed, rolling his eyes. "You should all speak Dewey by now. There's a note in the basket."

Ned plucked it out, reading aloud. "Uh… It's an invitation for us to go have dinner with Natalie and Maggie. They're the people who aren't the Lawrence and Lydia part of the band."

"Awesome, people who might be normal," Jade said, although she sounded more like she was talking about the funeral for a distant acquaintance.

"No, when I say 'us' I mean Dewey and I. It just says us two," Ned said, setting the note down. It didn't take a genius to see the frustration on Jade's face, and he shrugged. "There wasn't a reason, so don't ask me."

"Ros, what do you think?" Dewey had been planning on finding a nice restaurant for them to go to tonight, take her on a real date that wasn't drinking with his friends around.

"I would go. Try to get some of this sorted out," she said, standing back up. "Please keep me updated."

Dewey stood as well. "Hey, uh… There's time before dinner, why don't we go take a walk or something?"

Ros smiled at him, nodding. Her hand reached out for his, and their fingers knit together. It felt right to Dewey, like their hands fit together like two puzzle pieces. He shot a look at Ned and Jade as he walked out with Ros, silently demanding that the two of them not say anything about it. They were much more engrossed by scrolling through the texts that had been sent to Jade earlier.

He relaxed when they were a bit farther from the trailer, his thumb moving back and forth on the back of her hand. "I had a lot of fun last night," he said, cringing at how his words sounded like something he would say to a hookup. "You're really good at talking." Now he could only cringe at sounding like an idiot.

Ros laughed, and he could swear the world got brighter around her. Then again, he thought the same thing about when she smiled or shared a look with him about the pains of navigating the industry that they were both wrapped up in. "I never thought I would see you nervous."

"Never? Ros, come on."

"Really! You're so confident, and people like you, they really like you," she said, her free hand coming up to nervously touch her hair, a tick that she was unaware of until it was too late just about every time, and her hand jerked back to her side. "I wish I knew how to do that."

"You got me to like you," he said, squeezing her hand. "And besides, you're plenty likable! Ned likes you; Jade likes you."

"And yet very few people who I don't manage seem to want to see me," Ros pointed out, biting back the more intense emotions in her statement. "Dewey, why did you want to kiss me?"

"Ros, are you kidding?"

"No, I'm not. Why did you kiss me?"

"Because I like you, a lot. You're a total babe, crazy smart, and I like talking to you." He stopped walking and took both of her hands in his, giving them a squeeze. "Ros, I like you because you're you. I don't know why other people are too stupid to see how great you are, but I'm not. I don't want anything from you, I wanted to kiss you for the normal reasons that people want to kiss each other. I thought you would already know that."

"I… I assumed you wanted something. I wasn't sure what, but I figured that's what you wanted to talk about."

Dewey stared at her with a mixture of disbelief and sadness. "Ros I just wanted to spend time with my favorite woman on the planet. No manipulation involved; I just really, really like you. I thought you knew that, since you gave me the mini-speech about professional boundaries before kissing me."

Ros smiled, giving his hands a squeeze. "I give that speech to everyone who kisses me."

Dewey squinted at her, leaning in before he burst out laughing. "You're joking!" His hands left hers and he cupped her face gently. "Come on, let's hang out before I go on a double date with Ned."

* * *

Dewey was nervous. He hated being in clothing that was more formal than ripped jeans, but Ned had pointed out that the restaurant that they had been invited to was fairly nice. This had led to a conversation about how that prevented any sort of scene or brawl, which was a fairly smart idea on the part of their hosts.

Natalie was playing with a loose string on her dress, her finger winding and unwinding the red thread as a nervous habit. Her eyes were trained on the ground, while Maggie's were darting around like she was trying to absorb every part of their surroundings. She set her hand on Natalie's shoulder when she saw the two men walk in. "Ready to charm the fuck out of those two?" she said in a quiet voice, as if it were a devious plan. In her mind, it was.

"As you said before, many times, we're a delight," Natalie said in a faux confident voice, although Maggie was anything but fooled. "Besides, not like they have any issue with either of us, it's just that my brother punched one of them and stole his phone and has been nothing but combative and dear God this is going to be a disaster and Mom is going to throw me back into the N-"

"Hi! Dewey and Ned, right?" Maggie said, cutting her girlfriend off. "We were hoping we could talk about…"

"Getting paid to hate each other, how Lawrence stole my phone and punched me in the face, or how him and the kid who dresses like she's trying to piss off her parents let your secret slip? Because all of those seem pretty pressing to me," Dewey said, sitting down across from them.

Maggie tensed, her fist clenching and unclenching in her lap. "Well, pretty much all of those," she said. "Listen I'm not looking to have an argument here; we just want to talk."

"I know things haven't been great with Lydia and Lawrence, but the two of us haven't been involved in that at all," Natalie said, leaning her head on Maggie's shoulder. The anxiety was still building in her chest, no matter what she did to help that. It was a silent crescendo only stalled by Maggie's presence. "We want to make sure that the rivalry doesn't turn into real hatred, just whatever Juno says is okay."

"Again, Lawrence punched me and stole my phone," Dewey said, glaring.

"I, for one, am a big fan of not fighting." Ned set his hands on the table, offering his best nervous smile. It still wasn't very good. He nudged Dewey under the table, as if he were telling him to be nice for a few consecutive moments. "Besides, you two seem like perfectly nice people."

Natalie relaxed, a soft smile gracing her face. "Thank you," she said softly. "We're happy to pretend to hate you, but honestly, and don't tell Lydia we said this because she's a teenager and she would rip me apart, I think your music is good. Juno seems to really enjoy people tearing each other apart."

"Isn't she your mom?" Dewey raised his eyebrows, leaning in. "Your mom enjoys you having enemies and being miserable making music?"

Natalie lifted her wine glass and downed it. "Yes, yes she does."

"Cool, great. Let's eat."

Eventually, the four were more relaxed, food making it easier to talk and work through the initial awkward silences. Ned and Natalie got along better than any others, finding their desire for peace to be an easy idea to unify under. The night slowly drew to a close, all four staying longer than they had expected. That wasn't very hard, Dewey's initial plan had involved throwing water and leaving, totaling a grand thirty seconds.

"Why don't the two of you come back to the tour bus with us? Maybe we can clear up things with you and BJ?" Natalie said, at this point comfortably buzzed, her hands gently wrapped around Maggie's bicep.

"That seems like a horrible idea," Dewey said. "And I think I should head back; Jade might have resorted to arson by now."

"I can head back. It might be a good idea for him to chat with someone that hasn't punched him in the face." Ned smiled as he stood, pulling his jacket back on. "I was wondering, why did you ask the two of us to dinner? Is it because of the chair thing?"

"What? No, we just thought it made sense for the two couples to get together."

"Huh? Oh, no, Dewey and I are just friends," Ned said, holding up his hands. "We're just extraordinarily affectionate men who are very comfortable in their bisexuality."

"Yeah, I could do better than someone with the last name Schneebly."

"Hey, my mom gave me that name." Ned looked over to Maggie and Natalie. "I'll ride with you, Dewey you know how to operate Uber."

Dewey gave a short salute and walked out the door, typing on his phone.

The ride back to the tour van was quiet and uneventful, except for the totally sober Maggie fending off Natalie's attempts at cuddling her while she drove. It made for a difficult time, but Maggie really didn't mind too much. Seeing Natalie relaxed and happy was more than enough payment in return for having to swat away her hands.

Ned was chatting with Maggie as they walked inside the bus, relaxed. That rapidly changed as a flurry of things happened in the next few moments, causing Ned to scream, Lydia to swear, and Maggie to lock the door.


	9. A Bunch of Washed-Up Rock Fans

Dewey Finn loved college parties. He loved that the alcohol was free, that no one had any real standards, and that Ned hated drinking at them enough that he always had a designated driver. That didn't mean that Ned was boring, just a whole hell of a lot more responsible than Dewey. It wasn't hard to be more responsible than Dewey.

"How late are we staying?" Ned asked, checking his watch. "I have a test tomorrow morning and I still need to study, and honestly Dewey I'm getting a little tired of having to explain I brought my friend who doesn't even go to college along because he wants to get drunk."

Dewey huffed, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling before whipping it back into place to lock eyes with Ned. "If it's such a problem I can socialize on my own. No babysitting required. I just might die out there, in a sea of miniskirts and muscle shirts. And that blood will be on your hands Schneebly. Your hands." He stared at Ned imploringly, cupping Ned's face in his hands when he only stared blankly at him. "Fine, only a couple hours, and I won't do anything stupid. Happy? Now I'm going to die of boredom, not sexy people."

"You were never going to die of sexy people."

"You can't prove that!"

The party was fairly quiet compared to the ones that Dewey would seek out on his own. He liked loud, liked the people who went a little too far and got a little too wild for everyone else's tastes. That was what he was. Everyone here seemed… mellow.

Ned was enjoying himself for once. He loved quieter atmospheres, he loved how he could hear most of the people in attendance. Part of him hoped that the way the party was going would push Dewey to leave a little earlier than normal. He sighed with relief, which in hindsight, was an early celebration.

The calm of the party was interrupted by an argument that looked like it had gotten very heated, very fast. A woman was standing on a couch, one leg on the arm of the couch, the other on the back of the couch, positioned like she was ready to throw her entire body at the person she was yelling at. "SAY IT AGAIN MOTHERFUCKER!" Her words were heard by everyone in attendance, more than a few people groaning when they saw who it was. This wasn't a first it seemed.

Dewey, unlike the students around him, was curious; mostly to see what happened next, and if it would be violent, but he was curious. The man in front of the shrieking woman was bigger than her, but she didn't seem intimidated by that at all. He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "All I said was that Pink Floyd are a bunch of washed-up-"

He didn't get to finish that sentence before the woman let out a scream and jumped at him, seeming to not have any regard for her own personal safety. She probably should have, considering he managed to throw her at the ground with ease. She didn't seem bothered though, getting back up and rolling her shoulders before charging back at the man. Dewey downed his drink, deciding that, at the very least, he didn't want to see someone who seemed determined to defend her musical opinions to the death, die. It would put a pretty significant damper on his night.

In about two minutes he and the woman were being dragged, by Ned, into the back of his car. She was spitting out blood, and he wasn't looking too great either.

"One night Dewey! One night of calm," Ned said as he buckled the two of them in, even though neither actually needed any help. "And I… I don't even know you, but what the hell is wrong with you?!"

"We have Statistics together," the woman said, missing that the information she offered was at best unnecessary, and at worst annoying. "I sit in front of you."

"I really don't care," he said, getting into the front seat and starting to drive. "We're going to Urgent Care, and then you two can figure out how to get home, because I need to study and sleep."

Dewey opened his mouth to protest, then waved his hand in the air like the imagined conversation hadn't even been worth it. He looked over at his new companion. "Hey, what's your name?"

"What are you, a cop? I'm not telling you."

"I'll just ask Ned to find out since you sit in front of him."

"I'll fuckin' drop out. Th' drama is worth it."

"The drama of not saying your name?"

"Yeah, it's fuckin' funny."

"Are you drunk?" That probably should have been the first question.

The woman let out a quiet giggle, holding up her hand in a gesture meant to mean she was a little drunk. This was a lie. She was very, very drunk.

He shook his head. "Okay, can you answer any questions?"

"Not without a lawyer. I know my rights cop boy."

"I'm not a cop! I just got my ass kicked for you."

She squinted at him, as if she were weighing his words in his mind. "I'm Jade," she said eventually, reaching out her hand to shake his.

"So… why were you fighting a guy twice your size?"

"Said something stupid about Pink Floyd. Not really worth having a discussion, so… I bit him," she said, tone flat and even, like that was a totally rational way to behave. "Then he threw me, and you saw the rest."

"You bit him?" Dewey laughed in disbelief, trying to ignore the sound of disapproval Ned made. "That's fucking insane."

"He did not taste good. Like fuckin' steroids and beer." She raised her eyebrows as if she expected a response, but before she could stay anything else, Ned jerked the car to a stop, unlocking the doors.

"Both of you get out. Get stitches or whatever the hell else you need, find a taxi, drink some water and get some rest." The angry tone did not match the directions for care he was dispensing.

Dewey leaned into the front seat and gave Ned an annoyingly sloppy kiss on the cheek. "See you tomorrow man," he said, delighting in the irritated groan that he heard as he and Jade exited the car.

"He knows that this place is closed right?"

"I didn't have the heart to tell him," Dewey said, looking over at Jade and trying not to laugh. "I think he would have ditched us here anyways. You wanna crash at my place? I have this awesome couch that no one's vomited on in like a month, and we can just split the cab fare."

"Well, I am broke, and I do enjoy mostly vomit free things… Sounds decent."

The last thing the Ned was expecting to see at band practice the next day was Jade. She was wearing her clothes from the night before, perched on the edge of the couch. "Hey Ned, sorry for bleeding in your car yesterday."

Ned stared at her like his eyes were about to pop out of his skull, then turned on his heel to face Dewey. "Why is she here?"

"Well I was going to drive her home, but we got talking about music, and as it turns out Jade plays the bass! And we just lost our bass player."

"No, we didn't, I thought Aaron was still-"

"He's not."

"Why?"

"I might have drunk all the beer out of his mini-fridge and then hit on his boyfriend, but that's not important! Jade can play the bass! Or so she claims! And she's good! Again, another claim I have not asked for any proof on yet."

"I'm good," she said, hopping off of her perch. She gestured to Dewey, and he handed her the bass that was sitting in the corner of the practice area. "My band just broke up, so I might be a little rusty."

"Why don't we start with something we all know? See if we gel." Dewey smiled, and his expression turned puppy-doggish when he looked at Ned. "Come on, I'm not letting Maggot Death die just because Aaron wanted me to pay him back for beer."

"I- Fine. Jade, you like Pink Floyd, do you know Money?"

"By heart."

It was strange, how a new line-up ended up changing so many things in a short amount of time. Jade knew a few bars in the area from gigs with her past band, and when they saw the band perform there was a glue that held them all together. Even if things were rocky at the start the group started to grow together, Ned and Jade found a sort of bond in the rhythm section.

Change was hard. It had been after a gig, another bar, another night, that they were approached by an agent from Horace Green management. Someone had tipped them off to the rising stars, and they had liked what they had seen.

The first meeting with their new manager had been exciting. She was serious, and not too much fun, but Dewey had sworn that he had seen her smile when she heard at least a few of their dumb jokes. No one else believed him.

The growth of their fame was exponential, going from playing in local bars to bigger venues in just a few weeks. Dewey had thought he was getting mugged the first time someone approached him on the street for his autograph. It was exhilarating, and soon the band found they never wanted it to end.

After the years since their meeting, the exhilaration of fame and the adoration of their fans had never faded in their cores.


	10. Strange & Unusual Meetings

Beetlejuice hated his home. It was nice to be around his sister and his mother… Well, Juno was never kind to him, but the moments that were close enough to praise were enough for him. Once she had even implied that she was happy he was around! That was a little bit like love he supposed.

"Do I have to do this again?" he asked, hesitant. "It didn't work with the Maitlands, and-"

"Lawrence it didn't work with the Maitlands because you failed miserably, now make me proud for once in your miserable existence," she said, taking a drag of her cigarette.

He cringed internally. "Yes ma'am," he said. He prepared to leave, but a grip on his arm stopped him.

"Get changed first, don't need another incident like last month," she said, gesturing to his outfit and general appearance.

He nodded, heading to his room and looking at himself in the mirror. The green tint to his skin, the pointed ears… Well, there wasn't any reason to reveal the existence of demons and the Netherworld to humans, that would piss mom off more than anything. It might be funny though, to see how much a breather could freak out when their entire concept of death, religion, and well, everything was destroyed in an instant. He cheered himself up, thinking about all the ways he could freak out a breather while he made himself look like one.

The end result was interesting, to say the least. Peachy skin, teeth had lost their fang-like qualities, and his ears were rounded. Disturbingly human. He touched his hair and groaned. Even with all the happy thoughts about scaring a breather until they were a ghost his hair remained the deep purple that he associated with all the negative feelings he seemed to be experiencing constantly these days. Being around Juno could do that.

He walked back out, only receiving a small grunt of approval in response. That was good! Better than a grunt of disproval.

The demon worked his way through the maze that was the Netherworld until he reached the exit. He could just draw a door, but Juno didn't like the other ghosts to get any ideas. Leaving this way meant that he could see Natalie on his way out too. He beamed when he saw his sister, his expression different than every other in the waiting room. "Hey Nat, eat something off? You look green," he said, earning an eye roll from her and Maggie, the latter who had left her legs on the couch and her torso on the desk. Beetlejuice knew next to nothing about magic, so he was certain that Maggie's fate was a standard one for magician's assistants. "Mags, pull yourself together, I know, you're going to miss me."

"Be safe out there," Natalie said, patting his arm. "I know Mom is mad about what happened with the Maitlands, but you did the right thing."

Abandoning the first people he had ever fallen in love with didn't feel like the right thing, but Beetlejuice simply nodded in agreement. He supposed that, in a way, they were better off without him. He needed a topic change. "Hey, if things go good with this kid, I'll need a full band. Mom said I could drag you two up there."

"Getting out from behind the desk would be nice," Natalie mused, looking over at Maggie. "And we could go on a date that isn't just sneaking to a supply closet."

"Gross," Beetlejuice said, looking at his sister and sticking out his tongue. "Anyways, I'm going to go make the living regret doing that! Bye losers!"

With that, he walked backwards out the door. Maggie looked to Natalie, exhausted by the short conversation. "You really need to let me start bullying your brother."

Beetlejuice loved how the sun felt on his skin, the ability to be outside. Mom's civil servant recruitment plan was despicable, but the perks that came with it were well worth it in his opinion. Sure, some breathers died and were doomed to an afterlife full of paperwork and suffering, but he got to be outside without being eaten by a sandworm. He wasn't evil enough to totally justify it to himself, but moments like this got him pretty damn close.

Juno made sure that he was spat out at least somewhat close to their next target. That made it sound like there had been plenty before this, but this was the second. The Maitlands had been described as another one of Lawrence's failures by his mother, and the closest he had ever come to a real romantic relationship by Beetlejuice. They had agreed to disagree, and that meant that only Juno's opinion mattered, and Beetlejuice stayed quiet.

The sound of music, or really, a bass being played at an insanely high volume with upsetting lyrics being screamed along to them, traveled across the neighborhood like a summer breeze. Beetlejuice followed them; hands shoved into his pockets.

"Hey kid, you're pretty good," he said, eventually reaching the garage that the music was coming out of. "Teach yourself?"

The girl stared at him from behind recently dyed black bangs, narrowing her eyes with distrust. "Yeah. What's it to you?"

Oh, she was rude! Thank God/Satan, whoever handled the rudeness levels of teenagers. "Hey, I'm just looking for talented musicians. So… Kinda my business," he said, shrugging. "Unless this is an elaborate recording and act and you have no real talent, then I'll leave, but that's a lot of effort to annoy your neighbors." He could have sworn he saw her smile.

"I've been playing for a few years, my Mom started teaching me and I taught myself the rest."

"Damn. She give up on you?"

"What? No! She died." Her voice went from harsh to hesitant at a rapid pace.

"Oh. Sweet! Moms suck, mine is always like hey, why won't you take on the family business? Why don't you have any friends? When will you do anything worthwhile?"

"You need therapy dude."

"What the absolute fuck is a therapy?"

She stared at him like she was trying to figure out if he was messing with her. All she could really discern was that this person seemed completely honest, if a little stupid. "I'm Lydia."

"I'm B-. Bee-." He held a finger up, screwing up his face as if he could mentally defeat the curse that his mother put on him. That wasn't possible, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try. "Eh, names aren't important." He paused for a moment, staring blankly as he stewed in his embarrassment. "ANYWAYS! How long have you been playing?"

"Eight months."

Now his mother's plan made more sense. The kid was talented, she could play well. Getting her famous wouldn't be hard, and if she was one of those freaks that had a good relationship with their mother, she was probably already emotionally unstable, or at least more emotionally unstable than the average teenager. Perfect person to get famous. Perfect person to kill herself. Perfect person to set off dozens of copy-cat suicides and get his Mother a fresh young team of civil servants.

He felt sick. It was one thing to scare people to death, or just murder them for fun, but this wasn't fun. This was wrong. She was a kid.

Not following Juno's orders was a hell of a lot more dangerous, especially if he did it a second time. "My band's looking for a bassist, why don't you come jam with us tomorrow? It'll be fun."

"Dad says not to talk to strangers."

"Why?"

"Pedophiles." She shrugs as if that should be obvious.

He opened, then closed, his mouth. "Uh, yeah. That's fair. Totally fair. How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

Beetlejuice swore under his breath. Juno really knew how to dial the evil up to a fucking eleven. "Uh yeah, anyways… If you don't think I'm a pedophile tomorrow come jam with us. My sister is a killer guitar player," he said, giving a little wave as he walked off. He hoped that she didn't show up tomorrow.

* * *

She showed up. Beetlejuice was happy because fuck yes, new friend, and fuck yes, he didn't need to go back to the Netherworld for at least another two months. Or years. Decades? Human time was hard. He didn't need to go to the Netherworld for at least another two. Perhaps, even three. "Hey kid, good to see you," he said, ruffling her hair.

Maggie and Natalie were topside now, Natalie transformed into having skin that was definitely not green, and Maggie no longer in two parts, just a deep scar across the whole of her midsection, not that it was visible. "So that's my sister and her girlfriend, they're both annoying nerds," he said, ignoring how the pair flipped him off.

"I'm Natalie, that's Maggie," Natalie said, setting her guitar down and walking over.

"Cool. What the fuck is your brother's name?"

Beetlejuice blinked a few times, realizing that he had completely neglected to say his name the day before. It was easy when the name that he could say was the one he hated, and the name that he adored was the one Juno had cursed him to never be able to say again. Rude. He opened his mouth to speak, but Natalie waved a hand at him. "His name is Beetlejuice, but just call him BJ, or Beej. Call him Lawrence if our manager is around though, she doesn't like what he named himself."

"Thanks Nat," he said quietly, patting her shoulder, hanging his head slightly. He hated the curse. "Anyways… What music do you wanna play kid? We can go for anything." Perks of having musical ability magically imbued.

"Do you guys know any punk?"

* * *

They got along wonderfully, and within a week Lydia was Beetlejuice's best friend. Actually, within twenty minutes of playing together she was his best friend, but he said a week so no one would think he didn't have any other friends or something. He totally had friends. They just all happened to be fake.

Juno had been lurking, as always. She had been hounding Lydia to get signed on to a contract, sign on with the band, but she was a kid. The decision wasn't up to her.

At some point, Beetlejuice and Lydia were sitting together, in a shitty apartment that looked like he had been living in it for years.

"You shouldn't sign," he said quietly, looking over at Lydia. "Don't trust my mom."

"What? Beej the only reason I haven't signed on is because my dad keeps saying no."

Beetlejuice was uncomfortable, avoiding eye contact and letting out a whine. "She's a bad person Lydia, she just wants to make money off of you."

"Literally yesterday you were begging me to sign on. What the fuck is going on Beetlejuice?"

"She's a fucking demon!" Oops. Well, he had started a fire, why not throw some gasoline on it? "I'm a fucking demon! Natalie is a ghost! So is Maggie! Don't fucking sign on or you'll end up as dead as the rest of us."

"Beej, you need a fucking therapist, this is a sick joke."

"I still don't know what a therapist is!" He huffed and snapped his fingers, and in an instant, his teeth became more jagged, his skin became tinged with green, and his ears changed from rounded to the inhuman point he had naturally. "Does this fucking prove it?"

Lydia stared at him, and Beetlejuice felt a knot of fear in his gut. She definitely hated him now, thought he was a freak. She was going to leave. At least she understood, the Maitlands still probably thought he was an asshole who just left because he didn't know how to commit and they were never going to talk to him again and they didn't even know he was a demon, and now he was going to lose his best friend too. He was an idiot. He was horrible. He was evil.

"Holy shit that's awesome," Lydia said, eyes lighting up with a chaotic flame. "What else can you do?"

"You're not… I don't know, permanently disgusted? Hate me?"

"What? No," Lydia said, standing and walking over to him. "This is awesome. Have you ever killed anyone? Was it gross? Did you eat their face?"

"Lots of times, yes, and once but I wouldn't recommend it," he said, listing things off on his fingers, beginning to grin again.

"Sweet. So, what is Juno planning?"

"Oh! Yeah, she wants you to get super famous and kill yourself, and then some fans will kill themselves, because breathers are fucking stupid, and then she basically gets to boss around you forever in the afterlife."

"What if I sign up and just don't kill myself?"

Beetlejuice stood in silence like he hadn't thought of that. It was because he hadn't With Lydia knowing why Juno was making her life hell she had power, and the horrible ending that his mother had planned wouldn't happen. "Honestly Lyds, that's a damn good plan."

A devious grin spread across the teen's face. "Let's scam a demon Beetlejuice."


	11. Getting Drunk Isn't a Coping Mechanism

It definitely wasn't Halloween. Ned was almost certain that, at a minimum, it was summer and not Halloween, so there was no reason for Lawrence fucking Shoggoth to have green skin and be fucking levitating. "What the ever-loving FUCK is going on?" He backed away, his hand going to feel for the door handle but finding it was locked.

"Ned, calm down, please," Natalie said, gesturing for him to sit. "We can talk this out."

"Talk out what?! This is fucking insane!"

Beetlejuice settled his feet on the floor, rolling his eyes. "Breathers," he grumbled, walking over to Ned as the living man pressed himself against the locked door. He cupped Ned's face in his hands, the touch entirely unwelcome. "Listen cutie, I'm dead. I was born dead. You yelling about it doesn't do anything but give me a headache!"

"Are all of you dead?"

"Yes," Lydia said, in the creepiest voice she could conjure. "And we're here to haunt you!"

"Lydia isn't dead, the rest of us are." Natalie ignored how the teen was glaring at her. "I don't see how it changes anything about us, a few rituals will do that. It's not a big deal."

"Not a big dead?! You're a bunch of dead people hanging out for whatever fucking reason!"

"Make music, escape the world of the dead for a few years," Natalie explained calmly, trying to minimize the situation. If she didn't act like it was a big deal then it wouldn't be a big deal. That made sense. That definitely made sense. "Same people you knew earlier, just a little different."

Beetlejuice hadn't stopped holding on to Ned's face, and before he spoke, his grip tightened. "If you say anything, I will kill you."

"Bee-"

"He's right Nat," Maggie said, folding her arms. "Ned if you say anything people will think you're insane, and that's fine for you, but I'm not getting dragged back to the Netherworld because some breather can't keep his mouth shut. You have no idea what it's like, endless boredom, a giant fucking waiting room. There's no heaven Ned, there's only hell. That's if you're lucky too. You kill yourself? Civil servant. Forever. An afterlife of being enslaved by the biggest bitch in the whole system."

Ned shrank back farther if it were even possible. "I won't say anything, I swear."

"Thank you," Natalie said softly, pushing Beetlejuice back so he wasn't holding on to Ned anymore. She reached around and unlocked the door, looking somber. "Please, please say nothing about this."

He nodded, skittering out of the bus and not looking back.

"Aw… He's hot too, in a scraggly way," Beetlejuice said, looking out the window as Ned departed.

"Gross," Lydia said. Her voice was missing all the usual joy that it had.

"If he says anything Juno will send us all back to the Netherworld," Natalie said quietly, rubbing her face. "We're fucked. We're utterly fucked."

"I think Beej and I scared him enough," Maggie said, her voice hopeful. It was painfully forced.

"That contract I made with Juno should protect you all," Lydia said, her eyes widening slightly as Maggie and Natalie spoke. "As long as I'm alive you should be allowed to stay, and I'm not about to die anytime soon."

"Mom doesn't like to get her hands dirty, but if breathers found out about what death is like she wouldn't hesitate to kill you," Natalie said solemnly. "Or… All the other rules. People trying to summon their loved ones to bring them back would get messy fast."

Lydia nearly screamed in frustration, pulling her hair. "I hate this!" She had finally found a family that let her be her, and now they were going to be taken away. It wasn't fair.

"Beetlejuice, why weren't you in your human form?" Maggie demanded.

"I don't know, the same reason you don't wear a bra at home, being human is uncomfortable! They sweat and have to do laundry, and I don't even get any of the perks!"

Maggie opened her mouth to rebut him but waved her hand as if to acknowledge that his reasoning made sense. "Just send us a text sometime."

"Warn me if you're going to bring a breather over!" He groaned, rubbing his face. No matter how intimidating the threats had been, and how much Ned promised that he wouldn't say anything, the demon had no faith that he would be sticking around the living much longer. The only good breather was Lydia, and Ned wasn't nearly as trustworthy as the teen. "I'm going out, if you two get to have a fun last night with the living, I'm going to get drunk."

* * *

Ned shambled into the tour bus, looking like he had aged twenty years in the time between the last time he had seen Dewey.

Dewey, for his part, was lying sprawled across the couch, which wouldn't have been a problem if he wasn't lying across Jade, who was entirely sober and entirely annoyed. "Hey Ned," she said in a bored monotone, speaking over whatever nonsense Dewey was rambling at her. "Please tell me you're sober and just look like shit for fun."

"Very sober," he mumbled, walking past her to the bunk beds that made up most of the back of the bus. He collapsed into one, not bothering to change out of the clothing he had worn to dinner. Coping with reality-altering information wasn't something that the average mind was prepared to do on a good day, and Ned hadn't had a normal day, to begin with.

"Okay, Dew, get off of me," Jade said, and the following sound was the thud of a person hitting the ground. "Go to bed."

Dewey shuffled, pulling himself into the bunk above Ned's. He tried to begin several conversations, but his words were coming out slurred and not a single thing he said made sense. The total lack of response from either bandmate didn't help either. Ned wasn't in the mood for talking, and Jade wasn't in the mood to put up with a drunk person while she was still painfully sober.

Eventually Jade grew irritated, and after a moment she stood, walking towards the door and grabbing her jacket. "I'm going out, see you two in the morning."

Ned sat up, nervous energy overtaking him. "Wait, Jade, we always go out together, it's safer and-"

"Ned, you look like shit and Dewey's already drunk. I'm a big girl, I can handle one night out on my own. Seriously, get some fucking rest," she said, shrugging the jacket on and leaving before he could say anything more.

* * *

"Hey babes, can I buy you a Mai-Tai? We could have some fun." Beetlejuice was determined to have a good last night, and for him the included hitting on the nearest person.

Jade let out a long sigh, ready to start hitting her head against the table as hard as possible. "Lawrence, do you see with your eyes or your dick?" She was fairly certain that the name that Lydia had told her earlier was some weird joke, so she wasn't about to just casually start using it. On top of that, she couldn't come up with a single reason to respect the man in front of her.

Beetlejuice grinned. Sure, he hadn't noticed who she was until she had insulted him, but this would be fun. If he played his cards right, maybe he could get some hate sex out of it. That was always fun. It was also a major plus that she seemed totally unaware of his less than living status. Maybe that breather could keep his mouth shut. "Come on babes, tell me you haven't thought about being with all this," he said, gesturing to himself. Jade's expression remained flat and irritated as she stared at him. "I thought it was pretty hot when you hit me with that chair, I like it kind of rough."

"That was meant to get you to fuck off and leave Dewey alone," she said, not hiding the increasing irritation that was present in her voice. "Listen, I'm just trying to get away from the bus for a night, can you just leave me alone? Or- fuck, do you have Dewey's phone?"

"Oh, he is never getting that phone back," Beetlejuice said, laughing when Jade groaned. "Babes, let me buy you a Mai-Tai, and if you haven't fallen madly in lust with me by the time you finish the drink then I'll leave you alone."

"You know what? Fuck it, free drink." She had already had a few drinks, having another wasn't her best idea.

He beamed, rushing to the bar and returning a moment later, a drink in each hand. He handed one to Jade, and before she could take a sip, or judging by how she moved, start chugging, he set a hand over hers. "Ah, ah, no. No rushing, play fair Lewis."

She scowled at him, rolling her eyes and taking a small sip. "You're annoying as hell Lawrence," she muttered into the cocktail.

"Come on babes, Lyds already told you my name." There was little that got under his skin, but constantly being called a name that he hated really got under his skin. Juno had made sure he was constantly reminded of it.

Jade opened her mouth to protest, but she knew that names could be hard. She didn't like him, but she wasn't about to intentionally trigger anything. "Beetlejuice, right?"

"That's it babes," he said, flashing her a grin. It felt good to have someone say his name, and a little shiver ran through him. It made him feel seen, if even for a moment. "So… You like jazz?"

"Did you just fucking reference Bee Movie?" She had nearly snorted out her most recent sip of the drink, and set it down, still within her line of vision. "You basically have me captive with a Mai-Tai, and you decide to quote Bee Movie to me?"

"You're supposed to torture captives, right?" He beamed when he got an actual laugh out of her. Her laugh was cute, This was going better than he had expected. "Hey, you haven't… The whole music thing, you haven't mentioned that to anyone, right?"

"Only Ros and Ned, but they're like family. Can't really keep secrets from them," she said, shrugging. "Listen, I get the paranoia, but we really aren't as awful as you think we are. Like, I'll insult you and assault you, but fuck man, none of us are out to ruin your life." She paused for a beat. "I might hit you with another chair though."

"Promise?" He wiggled his eyebrows, letting out a cackle-like laugh when she swatted her hand at him. The answer to his question was reassuring though. If they kept secrets within the band then maybe they wouldn't be going back to the Netherworld as soon as he thought. He did wonder what Jade would think about all of this when she was aware he was dead.

She rolled her eyes, taking another sip on the drink, and making pointed eye contact with him, as if to indicate that his time with her was running out. What he didn't notice was how small of a sip she took. This was more fun than she wanted to admit.

"Babes-"

"Please call me Jade."

"Jade, listen. You can stand here and act like you aren't loving my company, and I know you are, because I'm great, or you can loosen up and have some fun. What do you say? Do you want to be stiff or-"

"Mostly I don't want you to finish that sentence," she said, keeping a totally flat expression, but Beetlejuice swore that he saw the corners of her lips twitching. He was wearing her down, which he considered a complete and total success, and not at all indicative that he was being a touch pathetic. "But hey, keep buying me drinks and I'll keep you company. That sound good?"

"Aw babes, you went from one drink to more. I must be a real charmer."

"Not really, I just like free alcohol and you're dumb enough to buy it." The words were cruel, but Beetlejuice had accomplished something, because she was smiling. Not a half-smile or a smirk, or the corners of her lips twitching, but an actual smile. "Besides, you're not that horrible when you're not insulting my friend or saying something gross."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment Jade," he said, leaning against the table. "Bee Movie aside, what do you like to do, hm? More importantly, what are you into? I need to know if we're compatible if I'm going to be buying you drinks."

"And we are back to saying something gross." She sighed, drumming her fingers against her cup, making a rhythmic series of clink noises. "Outside of music I guess I paint. My brother is a tattoo artist, so when we aren't on tour we hang out and design things together. You?"

"Mostly I binge watch horror movies and binge drink. Sometimes I spice it up and do them at the same time."

Jade stared at the ground for a moment, running her finger in a circle on the rim of her glass. "You uh… You overshare, huh?"

"Yeah, sometimes." He didn't see anything abnormal about it, but he did notice Jade downing the rest of her drink, as if she needed to prepare for anything else he would say. "What, you're tolerating my presence, who else am I going to mention my tortured tragic artist life to? Lydia's heard it all! And you're a captive audience who hasn't had your heartstrings pulled by my story yet!" As he spoke, he pressed a hand to his forehead, leaning back in an exaggerated swoon, acting like he was about to collapse on top of Jade.

"I will drop you. I don't even catch Ned. And I will watch you hit the floor and just laugh."

Beetlejuice cackled in response, imagining Ned falling on the ground. It was the little joys that made his un-life better. He waved over a server, getting a fresh drink for each of them. "Oh, hobbies! Sometimes Lyds and I make music the way we want to. That's always fun."

"I'd actually like to hear that."

"I'll give you a private performance." He was wiggling his eyebrows again.

"Be serious! Don't tell anyone I said this, but your voice is actually pretty nice. It's uh… Gravely. I dig it. Too bad the music sucks." She took a deep drink from her cup and tried to hide how her cheeks had turned bright pink. The mix of alcohol and the fact he was actually starting to seem not just tolerable, but pretty damn cute, gave her a near-constant blush.

"Hey, that was pretty close to a compliment Lewis."

"What? That was a complete compliment. Don't give me that pretty close shit," she said, lightly punching his arm. As she punched him, she made a small sound effect with her mouth.

"Are you already drunk? You've had… One and a half drinks," he said, looking at her in amazement. He definitely wasn't getting laid tonight, but hey, she was still entertaining. She had seen more relaxed the last few minutes; he should have noticed this coming.

"I'm… Yeah I might be drunk," she said, pressing her lips together and blowing some air out. She was used to drinking with Ned and Dewey, who knew her limits as well as their own, not a stranger who had been trying to get into her pants. It tended to hit more suddenly with her, and she took a moment to adjust to her new state. "Fuck."

"Do you want to get out of here? No, no, don't give me that look, not like that, I just don't know where your tour bus is and I can get you a hotel room and you can sleep this off," he said, feeling… something… for getting her in this state. This was not how he wanted to spend his last night on Earth if it even was that, but it wouldn't be right to leave a drunk rock star alone. Lack of morals be damned, sometimes he did the right thing.

Jade opened her mouth in protest but sighed in defeat. "Yeah, let's go," she said, looking up at him. "Lead the way."

Beetlejuice smiled at her, slinging an arm around her shoulders and leading her out of the bar.


	12. The Bad Thing at the End of the Chapter

"Oh, thank God-slash-Satan you're awake, I thought I was going to die here."

Jade pushed herself up with a groan, rubbing her face. She was in a bed, in a hotel. She was wearing all of her clothing from the night before, and they sure as all hell smelled like it. She was using Beetlejuice as a pillow.

Wait.

"Why are you in my bed?" she said as she rapidly stood up, looking at him with a deep-running suspicion, her expression as serious as she could manage with the hangover making her skull split open. "Actually, why the fuck are we in a hotel room?"

"Uh, because you got super drunk off of a couple of drinks and I didn't want you to get murdered in a bar? I've seen what you do. You hit me with a chair. And I'm nice so I didn't murder you for it," he said, propping himself up on her elbows to look at her. "I was just going to leave because I'm not a lightweight, but you have an iron fucking grip and wouldn't let go of me. Did you know you talk in your sleep?! Why do you want to fuck Napoleon so badly?!"

Jade paused, considering coming back with some insult or accusing him of lying, but all of that sounded exactly like something she would do. "I like history and people with power, sue me! It's not that weird." She looked away from him, searching for the next words. "Thank you, for uh… helping me out. Sorry I used you as a pillow."

"There we go. Listen, I was trying to sleep with you, but I'm not… You know, a fucking creep who wants to hit on a drunk chick," he said, getting out of bed, standing on the opposite side from her. "I get you have a low opinion of me, but seriously?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry that I'm not a huge fan of the jackass who punched Dewey and stole from him." That was harsh, and she looked regretful the moment she stopped speaking. "Listen, I don't mean to be a dick, but this is the first time I've seen you be even marginally kind. It's a bit of a shock."

"Wow. You are completely insufferably when you're sober," he said bluntly, shoving his shoes on. "What's that bitchy attitude for anyways? Don't have any friends? Daddy issues?"

"I feel like you're projecting here Mister Momager," she replied, even though he was far more accurate than she was comfortable with. "Listen, I'm fine if we keep the feud to Twitter and stuff, but I'm not really down with the whole… Whatever is happening here."

"You started it."

"Yeah, because I'm objectively not a good person." She paused, avoiding eye contact. The floor was certainly interesting this time of year. "I'm not really close with anyone but Ned and Dewey anymore, so I kind of get paranoid when people are nice. It's not really personal."

"Fuckin feels personal when you're insulting me to my face."

She nodded, wringing her hands uncomfortably. Jade wasn't sure why she cared about what his opinion of her was, but she didn't like that he obviously had a low opinion of her. He was justified in that; she had only ever insulted him, and yet she had felt comfortable enough the night before to curl up and hold on to him for the whole night. "Do you want to try again?"

"What?"

"This conversation, I fucked it up pretty badly. Give me a second chance?"

"Fuck it, I don't need to do anything for the next few hours. In this take do I get laid?"

She rolled her eyes, but walked over to his side of the bed, sitting down and gesturing for him to join her. Tension was present in her entire body, down to how she sat with a perfectly rigid back. "Beetlejuice," she began, and he realized she had at least some recollection of the night before. "Thanks for the drinks last night and thank you for the hotel room. I'm very sorry that I trapped you here and you had to hear me sleep talk about all the historical figures I have crushes on. That is hell, at least according to Dewey and Ned."

"Oh yeah, it's bad." He smiles at her, hesitant. It's rare that he's around anyone who isn't in Lawrence & Lydia for any extended period of time. "And you're welcome."

"Maybe we could hang out another time? When we actually plan on it and I can buy quarter strength drinks?"

He looked confused and leaned in like he was trying to study her face. Then, he leaned in a kissed her, nearly knocking her back on to the bed. Jade shoved him off and he hit the ground with a thud. "Hey!"

"Hey yourself! What the fuck was that?"

"You're the one talking about how we should spend time together babes," he said as if his actions made any sense. Although, in the mind of someone with three friends, one of which was his sister, another being his sister's girlfriend, and the final one being someone who actually spent time around him by choice, it made perfect sense. People only talked to him if they wanted something, and in his time with breathers that was either an autograph or sex. Jade definitely didn't want an autograph.

"Yeah, as friends! Holy fuck man I didn't want you to just jump me," she said, scooting away as he sat back on the bed.

The two of them sat in uncomfortable silence, the only sound being the rubbing of fabric together as Beetlejuice bounced his leg and looked around uncomfortably. After a while, probably too long, Jade let out a small giggle, holding a hand over her mouth.

"Are you going insane? Because I already got you a hotel room last night, I am not getting you a place in an asylum. That's expensive."

"No, it's just, how are two full-grown adults this fucking bad at socializing? I mean it's… It's fucking sad," she said, and despite her words she was still laughing slightly.

Beetlejuice stared at her, then joined her uncomfortable laughter, and after a while it faded, and the silence wasn't tense as it was before.

"Do you ever wish you weren't famous? Like, yes, money and not having to worry about my financial future ever is great, but I wish I could just fucking go to a grocery store and not have to be fake nice to a bunch of people because they think they know me from some interview," she said, looking over at him.

"I… Kind of know what you mean," he said. "I mean mostly my mom mandates when we can go out and do stuff, and how we dress, and pretty much everything, but when Lyds and I sneak out it's more fun when no one knows who we are."

"Fuck, she controls that much?"

"Yeah, it's always like, Lawrence why can't you dress like a person? Why are you such a moron? I wish I never had you! You know, mom stuff." He said it with a smile, like he was expecting a laugh. What he wasn't expecting was Jade to wrap an arm around him and give him a half hug. His entire body was stiff, and he looked at her like she was crazy. "You're weird." He returned the hug, squishing her into his side.

"Yeah… Hey, I should be getting back to Dewey and Ned," she said, although she didn't make any move to escape his embrace yet. "Ned was acting really weird last night; I just want to make sure nothing happened last night."

"Uh, yeah. I mean Natalie said he was acting weird; he probably just ate something funny." Beetlejuice nodded, trying to convince himself that whatever weird semblance of a friendship that the two of them had in this moment wasn't going to disappear the moment the Jade talked to Ned.

"I need you to let go of me so I can leave."

Beetlejuice stared at her and then smirked, wrapping his other arm around her, and twisting so the both of them were knocked over to lay down. He stuck his tongue out at her, and Jade only scoffed and rolled her eyes, sliding down to slip out of his arms. She pulled on her jacket and shoes, sighing. "See you around Juice," she said, walking out. He was still smiling, even if she couldn't see it.

The taxi ride back to the lot where the tour bus was parked was uneventful, mostly, but Jade noticed her jacket smelled differently than usual. It was earthy, like a forest full of decay in autumn. After she breathed in the scent it hit her that Beetlejuice had been on top of her jacket all night, and she really didn't mind that at all.

* * *

When she walked in the door Ned rushed her, like he had expected to never see her again at all. "Where were you? I called ten times," he said, grasping her by the shoulders. She looked around Ned to see Dewey relaxed on the couch.

"He's been like this all day," he said, shrugging.

"Yeah… I just had a few too many, and I crashed at a hotel," she said, leaving out the part where she spent the whole night clinging to someone she was literally paid to hate. That would be a conversation for when Ned was acting more normal, and when she was ready to be mocked by Dewey until she died. "Wasn't really checking my phone." She brushed Ned off, joining Dewey on the couch.

Ned was pacing and nodded. "Hey, uh, do you two know by any chance if we're in the same town as Lawrence & Lydia next? I'm just wondering."

Jade looked startled, but Dewey shrugged, not looking up. "I think we have a couple months off from being around them. Kinda sucks, Natalie and Maggie are pretty nice."

"Yeah, I just… I'm tired of all the constant drama," Ned said, making an excuse as quickly as he could. "But uh, yeah… Okay."

Dewey and Jade looked at each other. Ned had always been a little weird, they all were, but he seemed like he was on the brink of freaking out at any moment. "Yeah… Anyways, concert tonight, next city tomorrow," Dewey said, summarizing what their lives would be like until the end of the tour. It was exhausting, but maybe it would be busy enough from now on that Ned wouldn't be in such an odd state.

That was how things progressed for the next few months. Constant touring meant that there wasn't time for anything overly intense to happen, and with Dewey's phone being sent to them at their next stop, any further interaction was… Unnecessary.

Sure, there were jabs thrown around on Twitter, but after the dinner, it all felt more fake. Contractually obligated rudeness didn't have the same power as genuine hate. Ned, as always, didn't participate. He didn't out of principal before, and now it was out of pure fear. At least he stopped jumping every time they were brought up, at least after a couple of months.

Beetlejuice, before Dewey's phone could be returned to its rightful owner, went through his contacts and plugged Jade's number into his phone. He hadn't mentioned what happened to his bandmates either. He wasn't sure why, but he told himself he just didn't want to deal with them making stupid jokes. He didn't text her, even though she had suggested seeing each other again. There was enough happening in his world, he didn't need to complicate it further. She didn't need to be dragged into some demon's fantasy of having a whole two friends. She had managed to dig up his number through her own means, but she didn't text him either. Things were already too complicated. She regretted it though, every day when she looked down at his number. After all, he had been sweet, in his own weird way, and she had liked being around him. Relationships were considerably easier when fame wasn't involved in them.

* * *

Tours ended. Nothing lasted forever, and even though it was fun playing nearly every night, the bands were exhausted by the end. So, getting to move back home was a welcome relief.

Dewey had taken the last few months to lavish Ros with attention and affection. It wasn't as often as he liked, but it was enough that, by the end of the tour, Ros agreed to move in with him. He was over the moon, and for the first time in ages but some genuine effort into cleaning his home. He bribed Ned and Jade for help, offering pizza and his undying gratitude.

He was helping Ros pack her belongings into boxes, the two of them idly chatting about where certain things would go, and how they definitely had too many pots and pans for only two people now. Sure, the amount was fine for two individuals, but together? It was an absurd amount of kitchenware.

He was about to ask what she wanted to do with some of the duplicate objects, when he realized Ros was frozen, sitting on the edge of the couch. Normally he would make a joke of some sort, but Ros looked upset.

"Ros, hon, what's going on?" He sat beside her, taking her hand.

"I just got a text, someone else bought Horace Green Management, and they fired me," she said softly, the words falling out like she didn't believe them herself yet. "I don't…"

Dewey cupped her face, kneeling in front of her. "Ros, whatever this is, we're going to figure this out, together."


End file.
